Seventeen
by quillandspindle
Summary: Skin/scale, boy, girl - come undone in the heat; your world/my world, never the twain shall meet. A tale of dragons. Occasional strong language and mild innuendo.
1. Foreword

**FOREWORD:**

Here it is - the dragon story! Finally finished. So excited. I feel like I've been writing and editing this _forever_.

I initially meant for this to be a short (as in, "a couple of chapters, maybe") satirical piece on P+S fighting a rogue dragon but er. . . somehow it found a life of its own. See, someone said in a review/PM/comment: what _does_ P see in S? Or, more pertinently, how can we justify a thousands-of-years-old, extremely powerful, royal, immortal magical being with the world at his feet falling for an insecure tween mortal with serious trust and anger issues and a fair bit of emotional baggage, _and_ whose only redeeming qualities seem to be a "mean right hook" and a not-particularly-unique love for her family?

(And no, "fate" doesn't count. Not if there was no premise to start with. I mean, if we claim, "the cat made me do it," we'd better have had a cat somewhere in the house.)

 _How_ , indeed.

So I put these two sillies in my head and told them, "convince me it wasn't just the hormones." And this story happened.

And "a couple of chapters, maybe" turned into 20 (at last count). Well, what can you do - sometimes the characters go where they will. But hey, if you liked BRINK, maybe you'd like this one, too. I'm going to be editing and posting every week or so, so no worries about waiting too long between chapters.

Three things:

one, this is not the sequel to _Sixteen_ , nor is it the prequel to _Nineteen_. As always, the stories in my daftly-named _Age Series_ are unrelated.

Two, P+S here are very different from their _Sixteen_ or _Nineteen_ (or even _Fourteen_ ) selves. I'd been writing P and S as sweet, soul-matey types thus far, which in a way they are, but I thought it might be fun to explore the more volatile side of their friendship in _Seventeen_. So a bit of identity crises, dealing with parents and your-world-my-world conflicts, as well as the fiery passion and unflinching loyalty of late adolescence - all the awkward and wonderful things that define us at that stage in our lives, human _or_ Everafter. I hope you enjoy.

Three, I'd like to recommend a fic called **The Fledgling Year** by Schmo and Sushi. You can find it under the Favorites Stories tab in my profile. This is a story about Shasta/Cor and Aravis from _The Chronicles of Narnia: The Horse and His Boy_. The writing is gorgeous, the story is historically lavish and the characters wonderfully developed. It has so much heart and soul, and I personally think it is far superior to many commercially published books out there. It's a long fic - almost 100 chapters - but well worth the read. I'm pointing you to it because its two main characters are children in the original work but we're told at the end of the book that they get together when they've grown up. So many similarities to P and S, and so much fun to parallel the romantic tension between both couples. A true delight to read.

Finally, because it's cheating for an entire chapter to comprise _just_ the A/N, here's a limerick to redeem myself. Think of it as the prologue to this dragon story.

* * *

"Love," said a fairy named Puck*,

"is a lot like being hit by a truck -

you see it afar

so you're safe where you are,

then you're steamrolled before you can duck."

##

 _*Puck disclaims: "Absolutely NO personal experience was used in the making of this limerick. At all. Ever. Nada."_

* * *

All hail Michael Buckley for creating such characters as to inspire even those of us well past the recommended reading age of the books to continue telling their stories. Thank you, sir, for letting me borrow them.

Look out for Chapter One after the weekend!

~QaS


	2. Chapter One

#

 **~.PART I.~**

 **skin/scale, boy, girl**

 **come undone in the heat**

#~#

* * *

 **CHAPTER ONE**

"What do you mean - _dragon_?"

"Exactly that - a dragon. It. . . it took her."

"Of all the idiots! That moron doesn't have a single brain cell in that vacant planetoid she calls a head! How in the name of all things unholy did I ever see _anything_ in her?

That was how it began - their Epic Fight. Granted, it wasn't _quite_ as epic as the Dysenteric Pegasus Incident - no, that would go down in history as one of the most creative non-fatal revenge techniques ever performed on a single defenseless victim. This one, though, was a close second as far as asinine choices and preposterous cause-and-effects went. Later, her family would still have no idea as to how they survived it, let alone came anywhere close to speaking to each other again. And as for what happened in the forest immediately after. . . well, Henry still got the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. To fully appreciate how a perfectly innocuous family weekend all went to pot, we must start at the beginning.

Once upon a time, there lived a girl named Sabrina Grimm. Until she hit puberty, she was a normal - if a bit mouthy - kid who tried to save the world (and did). She had a fair amount of common sense but also a penchant for making unwise decisions - the unfortunate result of being simultaneously headstrong-with-a-point-to-prove and blindly devoted to protecting people she cared about. One might consider the latter motivation - to her credit - a mitigating factor whenever things ultimately turned catastrophic, especially paired with her weepy backstory (abandonment, foster care, abuse, hideous clothes picked out by color-blind humanoid guardian, etc. etc.). However, the fact remained that, noble or not, her intentions ultimately landed her in hot water more times than she or any of her beholden family members could count. Said family, aware of both her deep-seated image issues and their own role in her martyr-savior behavior, recommended psychological help, to which she acceded, albeit with no small amount of cynicism. As expected, this produced limited success; as long as "the crazies" were out there in the world, she'd maintained after several hundred dollars' worth of combined cognitive-behavioral and rational-emotive therapy, she'd always be the first in line to defend her loved ones, and she'd never rest until she'd eradicated every last threat all by herself, thank you very much.

And then she became a teenager.

Summary: Sabrina Grimm was a ticking time bomb itching to take on the cosmos.

Now, as if the cosmos didn't already have its metaphorical hands full with one walking hormonal disaster, Sabrina Grimm had a partner in crime - a boy of questionable age and even more dubious genetics, named Puck. In many ways, they were similar - shoot-off-their-mouths snarky, gargantuan savior complexes, better with their hands than their words (which wasn't saying much) - but Puck exhibited marginally better self-control and far better judgement in dangerous situations. For one, he was Fae, and immortal, and possessed magical abilities that put him at an immediate and unfair advantage over Sabrina, who was not only feebly human in general (as he took great delight in reminding her), but specifically dysfunctional in the presence of magic. Puck was also a far superior fighter, particularly with hand-held weapons, while Sabrina's innate pugilistic talent lay largely in the use of her right fist, which she applied liberally and with aplomb in lieu of actual communication. For the most part, they tolerated each other (so they said) although the oracular word-of-mouth was that they were fated to fall in love someday and be married. Naturally, both met this auspicious prophecy with impassioned utterances, not all of which were joyful; in fact, this very revelation was the impetus behind the aforementioned Dysenteric Pegasus fiasco, a trauma which we shall not recount here, as it has very little to do with our story.

Having established the idiosyncratic dispositions of our protagonists, let us now meet them in play. It was a late summer weekend during Sabrina Grimm's seventeenth year, when the days were still golden and the nights only just beginning to cool. To celebrate her father Henry's birthday, the Grimm family had driven from their urban high-rise to camp in the woods near her grandmother's estate in Ferryport Landing - one last hurrah, as it were, before the start of school. In attendance were Henry, her mother Veronica, her sister Daphne, her brother Basil and her grandmother Relda. Puck - although not officially a Grimm - had also come along under the pretext that that the Grimms were "a bunch of city-dwelling dweebs who'd likely poison themselves on lethal berries or get eaten alive by monsters if no one (he meant himself) were there to look after them".

On that latter claim he was unerring, it turned out, but the manner with which he'd chosen to avail his services had not endeared him to the family he'd felt so moved to protect. Unsurprisingly, Sabrina Grimm had boxed his ear and called him a number of rude but accurate names in response, to which he'd retaliated with a few well-placed slurs on her own virtue and honor - a typical exchange between two teenagers poorly managing their sexual tension, in other words.

Finally, after an exhausting afternoon of similarly loaded back-and-forths, the adults had astutely separated them, with Henry taking Puck away to gather firewood while Sabrina remained at the campsite to set up their tents. It was a disgusting exposition of gender roles, but the adults were at their wits' end and unbothered to exercise any more creativity than necessary to restore peace. Veronica and Relda had looked at each other with a mixture of weariness and understanding - after all, they too had once been girls on the cusp of womanhood - but the limit of their own empathy had already been exceeded several hours earlier. Henry had thought some man-to-man talk with Puck might help dissipate the boy's hysterical energy somewhat, much as he was still uncomfortable with his own daughter being its incitement. Still, better her father setting a potential suitor straight with regard to the finer points of managing women than some other disreputable or - worse, salacious - source, was his philosophy. And with that reasoning, he'd pulled the boy away from the company of the gentler (but only until a certain member among them opened her mouth) sex, and toward the calm, green woods.

At first, the silence had been awkward - and a clear power play - between the two men as they'd wandered around the back of the rock face in whose shelter they'd be spending the night. But then they'd finally got to talking, with Puck even admitting, in not so many words, that Sabrina was more than just a thing with which to goad his potential father-in-law. This in itself goaded Henry to acute annoyance, but he'd remembered the point of this excursion, so bit his tongue and let the boy go on. He'd listened as Puck complained that he couldn't understand why Sabrina insisted on doing everything solo, why she wouldn't let him save her from herself, and that he sometimes wanted to shake her hard just to make her see obvious sense.

"It's the Grimm women," Henry had said discriminatorily. "They're so determined not to let the war get the ones they love."

"What war?" Puck had scoffed. "Stupid Everafter feud's been over for years!"

"Any war. Any conflict. Any threat." Henry had quickly reframed, realizing that literal worked better than figurative with the frustrated Fae boy. "She had to watch out for Daphne when she wasn't old enough to . . . to . . . when she hadn't the resources to draw on; she was running on empty back when she didn't even have enough for herself. She's stronger now, smarter, has more skills, more people to fall back on, but it can be hard to unlearn what your mind is so used to remembering."

Puck had kicked the leaves viciously in response.

"It's been so many years. She should know me by now. I wouldn't take that away from her - wanting to protect you all, I mean. I just want to help her not do it alone. She's so . . . grrrnhhhh!"

Henry had paused, casting about for the gumption to say what was both at the back of his mind and on the tip of his tongue. Finally, he took a deep breath and forced the words out, willing them to sound casual.

"You care for her, don't you?"

Any normal teenage boy, hearing those words from the father of his intended target would've quaked at the knees, liberally sprinkled the word "Sir" in his address, and avoided direct eye contact with the one person whose impression of him could make or break the deal. But Puck was not a normal teenage boy so instead, he'd made an inappropriate sound in which, if one were familiar with his repertoire of inappropriate sounds, one might have discerned the semantics of a swear word.

In turn, Henry had marveled that, were he a normal father of a teenage girl, conversing with the boy in pursuit of her affections, he'd have pulled out a shotgun and, with all the passion of a Capulet forbidding his child from fraternizing with a Montague, ordered said boy out of his daughter's life. But Henry was no more a normal father than his daughter a normal teenage girl so he'd instead exhaled and tried again.

"And keeping her safe is how you know to show it."

"And she's too blind - or stubborn - to see!"

 _That_ , Henry had to agree with, in spite of all the independence, resourcefulness and self-sufficiency he was proud to observe in Sabrina. The boy had a valid point and he, as her father, had no problem conceding that two swords were ultimately mightier than one, as were four fists tougher than two, and one heart strengthened by another's desire to keep it beating a far better deal than the one heart skewered on the battlefield - or broken by a lesser lover.

For - much as it still made his hair stand to think it - Puck was not a bad match by any standards. He was strong enough to stand Sabrina's outbursts but not so hard that he didn't hear the dark and lonely undercurrents that so often flowed invisibly through her risky adventures and daredevil schemes. And, unlike many other boys his age (whatever that age was), Puck didn't look at Sabrina with One Thing on his mind; when they were together, they were more often than not physical in ways that merely involved short-range combat and lethal weapons.

Close bodily contact, ripped clothing, spiking adrenaline and risky behavior - it was all relative, after all, and subject to interpretation, and Henry knew which version he preferred.

"That's the thing with women," Henry had resorted once more to convenient stereotypes, "you've gotta know their particular translation. Get the tone right, and you get the meaning across. Otherwise, you're just wasting your time. Don't give up on her. Keep finding different ways to say it. Don't stop till you find the right words."

"Freaking _words_. Can't she just _see_?"

Henry had clapped Puck's shoulder in a man-show of sympathy, sensing that the boy was just letting off steam at this point; he'd already gotten the message. They'd bent to gather up the sticks they'd kicked together in an untidy pile, and headed back to rejoin the family.

* * *

Even as they came within sight of it, they knew something was wrong at the campsite. Instead of a cozy homecoming scene, they were met with the Grimms darting around frantically, digging in backpacks and calling out in anxious voices to each other. Around them lay the parts of the tents, still unassembled. And in the air was the distinct smell of smoke.

Henry announced their return and panicked faces turned in his direction. Puck counted four: Veronica, Daphne, Basil, Relda.

Sabrina was not among them. His heart sank.

"Where's Stinkface?" He shouted, beginning to run.

"She's gone!" Daphne sounded dazed.

"Gone? Where?"

"There was a dragon. Didn't you see it?"

"What do you mean - _dragon_?" Puck had a very bad feeling about this. Especially since dragon visits were seldom - okay, _never_ \- friendly.

"Exactly that - a dragon. It. . . it took her. She was trying to protect us."

It took Puck exactly half a second to believe Daphne. Because it was precisely the sort of thing Sabrina _would_ do. Against all odds. Wildly noble and wholly impulsive. Plain stupid, in other words. He dropped his armful of firewood, not even noticing that it landed painfully on his feet.

"Of all the idiots! That moron doesn't have a single brain cell in that vacant planetoid she calls a head! How in the name of all things unholy did I ever see _anything_ in her?"

Daphne's eyes widened at what could well be Puck's first ever public admission of his feelings for Sabrina that wasn't accompanied by a smirk or sarcastic laughter. It was a pity her sister wasn't present to hear it. Maybe she could get Puck to repeat it, in slightly more flattering words, when they finally got Sabrina back.

 _If_ they got Sabrina back. Dragons didn't usually ask for ransoms. Daphne's thoughts drifted back to Briar and the dragon that had taken her life, and her blood ran cold.

Puck was shouting again.

"Was she alive? Did she have a weapon? Which direction did it go?"

"Yes, she was alive." Veronica came to join them, her face ashen. "The dragon was circling lower and lower, like it was hunting. We thought it might pick one of us off but Sabrina was sure it was just going to burn everything. She said we wouldn't stand a chance because it's all kindling around us." She waved at the trees surrounding their campsite. "So she distracted it while we ran for cover."

" _Distracted it?_ A _dragon_?" Puck was livid as he clawed his hair. "She and what freaking army? Did she eat stupid for breakfast or something? You can't just _distract_ a dragon on the ground! It'd just . . . just . . . did she learn _nothing_ from the war? And you _let_ her? Unbelievable!"

"But _you_ did it." Daphne whimpered.

"In the _air_!" Puck yelled. "Aerial maneuver! It's the only way! On the ground, there's swiping tails and smashing claws and fiery breath and . . . and everything! It's like a fully-armed battering ram! But in the air, you can duck out of the way much faster than it can, and get close enough to blind it, or stab it while it's working on staying airborne. And there are ways to draw it away then. But wait! I believe there's a _tiny_ catch somewhere . . . " he made an exaggerated show of thinking very hard, then drawled patronizingly, "Oh, I know! You'd have to have _wings!"_

He scowled bitterly. "But why am I bothering to explain all this to you? It's a bit late now!"

"Can you save her?" Daphne was in tears, shock finally giving way to grief.

"Well, I've got no choice, have I?" Puck said, looking around for something to fight a dragon with. They'd left their combat weapons at home, thinking that this was going to be a peaceful camping trip in the woods.

As if. They were _Grimms_. Even on their days off, disaster followed them like a vulture to carrion.

Puck finally found a long, strong branch and caught up a kitchen knife lying beside one of the tent bundles. Flying up into a tree, he ripped out some vines and returned to the ground, tying its handle to the end of the branch with the longest of them. Holding his makeshift lance, he frowned around at everyone.

"Did she have a weapon?" He demanded again.

Daphne shook her head. "She took my wand. The one I brought with us in case we needed to conjure extra food or shelter, if it rained."

Puck gaped at her. "Well, it just keeps getting better and better! The peabrain can't even handle magic without blacking out or turning into a raving lunatic and _that's_ the only weapon she's got with her?"

"I'm sorry!" Daphne wailed. "I sh… shouldn't have brought it. It's my fault!"

Puck slapped his hand to his head and exhaled noisily. "No, Marshmallow, it's not your fault. It's . . . dangit! I _hate_ it when dragons come around acting like they're gods of the whole dang world. Freaking bullies! Look, I'll get her back, okay? And I'll take out that stupid overgrown bird, too, so it won't ever come back. Stop crying! I've killed hundreds of 'em before; it'll be a piece of cake."

"You promise?" Daphne looked at him with wide, shiny eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, I promise."

"Oh, Puck!" She threw herself at him and almost choked him before he could pry her arms away. Over her shoulder, he caught Henry's troubled gaze.

"You see, old man? This is _exactly_ what I was talking about! Your daughter is a walking disaster! It's a good thing I'm here to clean up her mess. I'll bring her sorry ass back, don't worry. And if that dragon doesn't kill her first, I'll do it myself for being such a dumb-butt."

Daphne wailed again, right into his ear, and he recoiled. "Okay, okay, Marshmallow, cut it out! Enough of the boo-boo faces already! And hey, Basil! You're in charge of this sorry bunch now, got it? Make sure no one else does something stupid. Now, which way did the dragon go?"

Basil wordlessly pointed to the West and Puck, with the lance in his hand, rose off the ground on frantic wings, billowing a cloud of leaves and dust beneath him. Without a backward glance, he turned and flew off into the setting sun.

* * *

 **A/N: An earlier update than I promised, but this was a short chapter and I had some time this morning to do a final edit. Happy weekend!**


	3. Chapter Two

**CHAPTER TWO**

Against a sky the color of fire, Puck was the silhouette of a missile single-mindedly streaking to its target.

If only he knew _where_ that target was.

Grimly, he scanned the horizon for any sign of the dragon, hoping that its head start was narrow enough that he might still see it in the air. If not, there might at least be some tell-tale sign - fire, smoke, a razed landscape - of the route it'd taken.

He inhaled deeply, tasting the air currents, curating the scents they carried in from miles around.

He recalled encounters with other dragons he'd fought and slain in the past, sifting through his arsenal of battle experiences for their habits, their strengths and flaws, their preferences, their survival patterns, the many ways they could be killed - quickly and efficiently, or agonizingly slow.

Finally, he turned his thoughts inward, drawing on his own intuitions from when he'd shifted into one of the savage creatures himself, as his mother had taught him when he'd come of age. He let his mind drift as his wings - insectile and light - beat a powerful rhythm, blurring the boundaries between all flying things. Slowly, he felt his consciousness fade from Fae to beast, stopping just short of actual transformation, and opened his senses.

He was a dragon - a lord among raptors, a deadly hunter with superior instinct and no regard for the lives of lesser beings; powerful, intelligent, hungry, cruel, protective, unstoppable -

 _Protective_.

He snapped back to himself.

He knew where it was going.

And with a dread that put hell in his heart, he realized why it had taken Sabrina.

* * *

On the very first mountain he came to, he found the lair. A stone's throw from the peak and hidden within the rock face itself was the sizable hollow in which the dragon had built its home. It was surprisingly close - it had taken him less than twenty minutes to get there and he imagined it would've taken the dragon even less time, with its greater size and speed. There were no other signs of life between this mountain and their campsite; everything was woods and bare fields for miles, and Puck knew - as Veronica had guessed - that the creature had been hunting.

But humans were not a dragon's usual prey - they were bony and stringy and tended to fight back with both weapon and intellect. There was only one reason for why this dragon would've settled for a human camp when it could've flown further to pasturelands rich with slow-grazing sheep and other defenseless livestock.

Puck hovered as close as he dared and peered into the lair. His heart sank as his worst fears were confirmed - three oval eggs sat like smooth rocks in a mass of branches, bones and melted metal. One of them was shifting slightly, as if whatever was inside was restless and wanted out.

A nest.

There was no sign of Sabrina.

Puck bared his teeth and tightened his grip on his lance, determination rising alongside the desperation in his gut. A mother dragon protecting her clutch was a hundred times worse than a regular dragon merely out for sport, but Puck had just found a bargaining chip.

 _So you took Grimm - stupid though she was - did you? Let's see how you'd like it if I threatened_ your _family, you overgrown lizard._

A sound made him turn his head - the flap of mighty wings - and he darted into the nest and wrapped his arms around one of the eggs. It was heavy and unwieldy, and he paused to hurriedly tuck the lance through his belt before resuming his embrace of the egg. With a heave, he lifted it out of its resting place and into the air as he pushed off. Its weight threw him off-kilter but he checked his momentum, ascended swiftly to the peak of the mountain and ducked behind the rock face -

\- just in time.

In eddies of dust and heat, the dragon appeared. Puck could see it even from his hiding place - all 40 to 50 feet of armored scale the color of coal dust spilled thick on a terra-cotta floor. Burnt orange and mottled black along its body, with bronze plates of bone outlining its wings and brow, its tail curled low beneath its massive belly as it slowed over its nest, dipping its pointed snout to its clutch of eggs. From one of its claws hung a figure, weakly moving.

 _Still alive._

"Grimm!" Puck breathed, feeling relief so stark that he almost dropped the egg. He didn't even bother to wonder how he'd beat the beast to its nest.

The dragon threw its head back and roared.

"Lost something, have you?" With malicious glee, Puck announced himself, holding his prize. "Someone's _not_ a happy camper. See how it feels when other people steal your stuff?"

The dragon whipped around and eyed its precious cargo in the arms of the much-smaller intruder hovering insolently outside its home. Slowly, deliberately, it pulled back its head.

Puck knew that move - he'd used it himself with much aplomb; in fact, he'd practically patented the name: Preparation Inferno. He held out the egg over a sheer drop to the sharp rock outcroppings below.

"Ah-ah-ah!" He shook his head in disapproval. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. Burning hurts like hell. And if I'm in pain, I might accidentally let go of something."

The dragon eased itself out of its lair and, with a single flap of its wings, was eye-to-eye with Puck.

"What do you want?" Its growl was guttural, its words harsh and barely intelligible, but Puck was fluent in its speech, and shouted back, "Let's see. . . how about we trade hands? What've you got in yours? Oh, a human! Fun! Alrighty - that human for this egg."

The dragon lifted its claw and regarded Sabrina.

And squeezed.

Sabrina screamed.

Puck's eyes widened in horror and the word escaped before he realized it'd betrayed him: "NO!"

The dragon's scaly lips curled in a discernible sneer.

"So this one is important to you, insect!" It hissed. "Pity. It will do nicely for my hatchlings."

Once more, Sabrina's scream of pain echoed off the rock face as the claws tightened around her body.

Livid and desperate, Puck snarled and tossed the egg down the mountainside. Not hesitating even to watch its descent, he rocketed back into the nest and snatched up a second egg in the time it took the dragon to screech its own fury. Later, he would kick himself for gambling on Sabrina's life - he'd been relying on the dragon's tenacity to hold on to its prey once in its grasp, but he was so filled with wrath in that moment that he hadn't considered it might choose to save its offspring over its newest meal.

Now, deadly calm and with a second egg in his grasp, Puck faced the dragon once more, wings beating a frenzied rhythm.

"I will do it again," he promised as he raised the smooth ovoid. "You _know_ I will. The human for your egg, monster! Set her down _now_!"

The dragon's jaw shot toward Puck in a rush of teeth and heat and the stench of death. He ducked - just barely, because of the weight of his load - and the maw closed harmlessly overhead.

Incensed, he righted himself and, for the second time, hurled the egg with all his might against the rocks below.

As it exploded in a burst of slime and the sound of wet flesh splattering over crushed bone, the dragon screamed again and launched itself at Puck. This time, he felt the flames pouring out in a burning stream.

He dropped, letting gravity pull him out of its way.

Once more, a harmless overhead pass left him unscathed.

But as he fell, he caught sight of Sabrina's face - she was blinking painfully at him, her mouth open, her hands braced against the punishing talons around her - and his heart constricted.

Seconds later, he was rising, somersaulting over the dragon's back, plunging his lance into its head.

He missed.

The beast twisted, and the lance glanced ineffectively off its plated cheek. Puck ducked a second searing blaze from its open jaws and made for the lair. He slid in, hoping to grab the last egg.

But in an instant, the massive creature was balanced at the mouth of the hollow, its body blocking the entrance. There was no way to repeat the Egg-Smashing Maneuver with the last of its offspring. On the bright side, the dragon - and, therefore, Sabrina - was no longer airborne. Better yet - as it landed, it released her, and she rolled unceremoniously onto the filthy floor of the den. Before Puck could move to her, however, the dragon's foot came down on her body, trapping her.

Puck watched with desperate eyes before meeting the dragon's furious gaze. He wanted nothing more than to slice off the scaly foot holding Sabrina captive and pick her up in his arms, he was so terrified. But the game was not yet over, not while they were both cornered in a hole in the mountainside with a living inferno planted resolutely between them and freedom.

He backed toward the nest and raised the lance above the remaining egg.

"Your last one, you filthy piece of trash," he said pleasantly, letting the bitter insult slide off his tongue. "One last chance to trade. Choose well, but hurry. I don't have all day."

He waited, hair matted with sweat, weapon in position, arm shaking as much from the effort of holding it steady as from the fear for Sabrina's life.

His eyes were still watching the beast's mouth - one false move and he might be roast - so he didn't see when it ground the pad of its foot into Sabrina's midsection.

But well enough he heard her choked scream and, in it, like a desperate plea from her lips, his own name. For once, it wasn't an angry bellow, the way she'd always yelled it when he'd done something to tick her off, or the mocking taunt she reserved for particularly vengeful retaliation.

She was _afraid_ \- and something broke inside him to hear it.

Instinctively, he swiveled and shot the lance into the dragon's face.

With a wet thunk, it embedded itself in its eye, and it was the beast's turn to fill the den with the sound of its agony. Puck dove for Sabrina, grazing elbows and forearms and ripping fabric as he pulled her out from under the dragon, toward him, to safety.

The dragon yanked the lance out with a scrabbling claw, and it landed beside them with a clatter, slick with dark blood. The beast writhed in pain, disoriented; any second now, it would fill the den with flames, egg or no egg.

Sabrina shook her head violently, rose unsteadily to her feet, and grabbed the lance.

"What are you doing, you idiot?" Puck yelled in disbelief, his earlier chivalry quickly forsaken for old habits.

She ignored him, holding her side with one hand as she gripped the lance with the other, and ran at the dragon.

"Come back, stupid fool!" Puck screamed.

With a mighty lurch, she thrust the lance into the dragon's soft underbelly and sliced sideways. It was a foolish move - a knife on a stick was never meant to cut, only stab, and the shaft easily broke off, splintering into her hand. But, by some miraculous stroke of luck, the damage was done: blood and fluid and slippery things burst out of the wound as it gave vent to the pressure built up in its bowels, and the dragon flopped onto the floor of its den, its great bulk pulling it backward and outward through the opening. Dim light suddenly poured into the cave as the body toppled over the edge and down the side of the mountain. Puck could hear it thud sickeningly against the rocks as it fell.

He grabbed the remaining egg from the nest, tossed it in the air, and punted it out in an arc to join its mother.

With a great sigh, he turned back to face Sabrina.

Cue passionate reunion.

Or not.

" _What_ in the name of all creation were you _thinking_?" He spat at her.

"Excuse me? I just _killed_ your stupid dragon! In my world, that's generally considered an act of courage." Sabrina pushed herself up, covered in a delightful concoction of draconic body fluids, and promptly slipped on her own palms into a painful landing.

"An act of supreme _stupidity_ , you mean!" Puck roared. "You got captured by a dragon! A _dragon_! By your own asinine actions! You could've been killed! You _should've_ been killed! You would've been hatchling lunch! They would've torn you limb from limb! Painfully! I had to come save you!"

"Nobody asked you to, moron!"

"What the -? Stupid _and_ ungrateful! You're a real piece of work, you know that? At least have the decency to admit you were an idiot to try and take on a full-grown dragon!"

"I wasn't trying to _take on_ anything! The thing came to our campsite and I was trying to distract it so -"

"Yes, distract! With what, exactly, numbskull? Do you have wings? No! Are you especially skilled with anything but your fist? No! Have you any prior experience in dragonfighting - not even talking dragon _slaying_ here; just _fighting_ , mind you - huh? Huh? No! No! No!"

"Hey! I'll have you remember that back in the war, I killed that dragon with the water cannon! That _you_ missed!"

"Ooooohhh! Water cannon! Well, do you see a water canon anywhere about? No? Oh, did you forget to pick one up at Walmart on your way to camp? Oh, boo hoo. So, once again, you were outmatched. Oh, no, wait - I got it, I got it - out _gunned_. Get it? Get it? Gimme a break, Sabrina! You guys are _Grimms_! You're supposed to be great at working together! Where the hell was everyone else?"

"Safe! Hiding! They -"

"Cowards!" Puck's mouth fell open in horror. "Unbelievable! Who -"

" _I_ told them to, okay?" Sabrina was now on her feet, clenching her fists so hard she was sure her nails drew blood. "I'm supposed to be a leader, right? It's always 'Sabrina, what should we do?' and 'Sabrina, you need to come up with a plan!' So that's what I did. That dragon came out of nowhere and I had only seconds to make a decision. _Seconds!_ So I chose. I chose my family, and I told them to get to safety and . . . and . . . and that's all, okay? I wasn't trying to - I wasn't thinking about -"

"Yes! Thank you very much! Exactly! You _weren't_ thinking! _That_ , Grimm, is how warriors get slaughtered! _Warriors!_ Which _you_ aren't even! You're just a girl with some experience in warfare! At best!"

Exhausted and wounded as she was, Sabrina threw out her famous right hook and caught Puck on the jaw.

Unwilling to return a punch in her face, he shoved her back, and she rained her fists down on him, but it was a feeble attempt because she was in pain, curling into herself, her face twisted in a grimace.

"I hate you!" She yelled. "Why do you pick on me, Puck? We're not eleven anymore! Why can't you just let me be?"

"Because you get yourself into exactly this sort of thing!" He shouted back. "When will you learn -"

There was another noise coming from outside the lair. It'd been easy to ignore while it was just a distant soundtrack to their arguing, but now it was too loud. And when they finally stopped mid-fight to stare at each other with wide, apprehensive eyes, it was frighteningly clear what the sound was.

Wings flapping.

But it couldn't be - there was no way that dragon could've survived the fall, disemboweled and half-blind. Yet through the mouth of the lair, they saw it fast approaching, already close enough to make out the frilled collar behind the horned head.

This was not the same dragon. This one was the color of old blood, with cruel spikes along its spine and tail, and tattered wings that whipped the air and pulsed its body in an undulating rise-and-fall with each downstroke. It was also much larger than the first dragon, and carried something in its claws - something big that writhed and bellowed.

It was a bear- a fully-grown grizzly.

"Oh, crud," Puck turned back to Sabrina. "That dragon we killed was only the _male_. The brute had a freaking mate, and she's not gonna be happy to find her family all gone, and their murderers playing house."

"We'd better get outta here, then," Sabrina said, swallowing, their earlier animosity forgotten. "Fly us out, Puck!"

Puck grimaced. "Uh . . . no time. Darn it, I was hoping it wouldn't come to this."

"Wouldn't come to what?"

Puck swore and pushed Sabrina toward the back of the lair.

"Stay out of the way," he warned, then inhaled sharply. Before Sabrina's astounded eyes, his body swelled above her, turning a dark, scaly green. His legs thickened and lengthened, sprouting sharp talons, while a tail snaked behind him and bubbled into heavy plates of armor that rippled up his spine to his pointed, horned snout. Out of his back, huge leathery wings unfolded and extended in a show of hostility and dominance. He raised his head just as the new arrival homed in on the entrance to the lair.

He roared, filling the cavern with the sound.

Sabrina, her neck craned and her ears ringing, gulped as her brain finally caught up.

Puck had become a massive dragon, and he'd just issued a challenge to duel to the death.

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **Q: What's the moral of the story?**

 **A: Don't let Dad dragons go hunting. Mom dragons bring home safer food.**

 **But - yessssssss. Teenagers fighting dragons. Teenagers fighting teenagers. And then dragons fighting dragons. All the happy permutations covered. Did we know whether Puck could turn into a dragon in the books? I didn't think so, but my goal was that by the end of this story, you'd believe that he could.**

 **Early update today because I have the first chunk of chapters ready to go live. Let's see how long I can keep this up. I've loved hearing from you guys again in the reviews - thank you! It's good to be back.**

 **Responding to guest reviews and others I didn't get to PM this time around:**

 **susiequeen300: yes, I'm back. And yes, there will be adventure and bickering and people being immature. Brink was about older P+S; Seventeen is closer to their characters in the books, when they're young and still very much their parents' children.**

 **Arabella Quinn: Thank you! And, as you requested, here _is_ more!**

 **Sarah: Thank you for those questions! Hopefully this chapter answered some of them. And maybe more will be answered in future chapters. There is a scene in Chapter . . . I dunno - 8? 9? 10? when Daphne and Sabrina exchange words about the idea of being left behind. There might be a bit of poetic justice in it.**

 **Pinklily8: we talked via PM already but thank you again for your wonderful review and excellent conversations! I honestly missed the significance of S having no text in the last chapter. She was supposed to appear only now, and I meant for her first words to set the tone of the P+S relationship for the rest of the story. Establishing her as a renegade - yes, but doing so sans text = happy accident. Good eye!**

 **~QaS**


	4. Chapter Three

**CHAPTER THREE**

And now, Sabrina at last realized what a mess she'd gotten herself into.

Dragons, from what she'd read in storybooks, did not like other dragons invading their personal space. The bulls (she thought that was what the males were called) were territorial enough, but the females (cows? Hens?) were far worse. And female mother dragons driven half-mad by protective instincts were _exponentially_ worse.

But a _bereaved_ female mother dragon was like Hell itself unleashed; woe betide anything - living or otherwise - in the vicinity when it unloaded its grief and rage.

And here was Puck, cavalier cradle-snatcher and hatchling-slayer, not just in its vicinity but gloatingly and defiantly so -

Puck, who was not even _really_ a dragon, merely a flying boy with an unfortunate talent for disguise -

and not a very evenly-evenly matched disguise at that - massive though he was, he was still a juvenile compared to the much older and much larger she-dragon.

Sabrina felt her blood boil. He was so full of himself! So completely irresponsible! A crucible of testosterone and alpha male baloney! _And_ a hypocrite to boot, giving _her_ a hard time for taking on a dragon when he was now doing _exactly_ the same thing, only in fancy dress and with far more drama than she could've ever dreamed of, let alone carried off with a straight face. At least _she_ did it to protect people she cared about; _he_ was just showing off!

 _Or_ maybe _he's doing it for exactly the same reason_ , the rational side of her brain pointed out. _And you'd better start hoping he wins. Because if he doesn't, you're pretty much stranded, seeing that you don't have any way to climb down the side of a mountain, assuming the grieving mother doesn't eat you first._

"Fine," she grumbled, any rebuttal she might've had effectively silenced. "I'll be in his corner. I'll even cheer."

She winced as she obeyed Puck's order and shrank back in the lair. Her side hurt but, considering how she could still breathe without screaming, not to mention hold schizophrenic conversations with herself, she guessed that nothing was broken. This, she decided, was no less than a miracle, given how scared she'd been just minutes before that the male dragon would crush her in its claws while Puck watched.

Something about Puck watching her die turned her insides. She couldn't bear the look on his face when he'd dropped like a rock to avoid the dragon fire earlier, and caught her gaze: a heartbreaking mix of helplessness, misery and utter defeat. It was not a good look on him; it confused Sabrina, made her question the way they were with each other.

And in that moment when she'd been trapped between the dragon's foot and the hard ground of the den, her only thought had been of _him_. She'd gasped his name, wanting to tell him to turn away so his last memory wouldn't be of her weak, crushed and powerless.

Because she'd realized what it'd do to him for the rest of his life, knowing he couldn't have done anything to save her.

She ordered the thoughts out of her head. She'd deal with them later, after Puck had slain the monster and dragged its sorry head back to the camp in triumph. He _had_ to. She wouldn't accept the alternative.

From just outside the mouth of the hollow, the she-dragon took in the contents of her den. Sabrina caught the exact moment in the beast's narrowed eyes when it comprehended the barren nest and the strange male upstart in place of its missing mate. The vicious claws loosened and the bear, so suddenly obsolete, tumbled harmlessly out, bumping and thudding its way down the side of the mountain. With deliberate menace, the angry mother landed on the lip of the lair, blocking the exit and cutting off any chance of escape.

Beyond the nest, crouched in the antechamber of the den, Puck charged.

Hulking and stolid in its advantageous perch, the she-dragon raised itself on its hind legs and lowered its head in defense before its much smaller challenger. At the last minute, Puck pulled in his limbs, folded his wings and flattened himself against the ground, sliding neatly under his opponent's vulnerable belly. Before it could react, he'd raised his head just enough to catch his horns on its soft flesh and rip silent wounds that bled ragged as he skidded out behind it. With a burst of wings, he was out in the open sky, riding on currents, banking around in a return arc.

His victim screamed, releasing anguished, flaming breaths that lit the cave crimson. Sabrina crouched, praying the nest - and she - would not ignite. Her heart thumped at Puck's maneuver - she marveled at him, and for a brief moment allowed herself a champion instead of a bickering antagonist.

But fawning admiration would have to wait - the wounded dragon tumbled out the den in pursuit, and Sabrina was alone, safe for the moment, and left to ponder the humbling lesson she'd just received on how to _really_ draw a dragon away from defenseless prey.

"Well, of course, if you have freaking _wings_ ," she complained to no one in particular. "Some of us have to skitter on the ground with our puny legs."

Still, she began to feel _just_ the slightest bit chastised.

The duel was now airborne, fought under the colorless cast from a moonlit sky. Had she not had personal vested interests, she imagined she might've enjoyed watching it in the same way she would a fighter jet formation in an aviation show. But now, her heart was in her throat as she hobbled to the mouth of the lair, determined not to give in to vertigo as she stared at the winged shapes circling each other against the stars. The she-dragon showed no signs of flagging, even with its recent injuries.

With wings pulled close to its body, it dove toward Puck as its neck reached to close its jaws around his. A whip of his tail into the side of her head stunned her long enough to put safe distance between them, and he swung around, flapping his wings to hover as he regarded the creature. He seemed to be waiting for it to strike again.

It did, using its bulk to barrel into him, the momentum knocking him sideways even as he ducked to block. He backed up higher, keeping his face to the the she-dragon while he recovered for the next move. This time, he struck first, blasting fire into the dark red face to distract it while he swiped a foreleg along its neck. More blood; a screech of rage.

The she-dragon reciprocated, its frilled collar slicing his back as its body rolled on top of him. Puck roared, and Sabrina's heart stopped.

"Please be okay," she moaned, eyes wide with terror.

He dropped and came from below and behind, using his smaller size in a daring aerial maneuver, butting the creature under its wing with his horns. It shuddered, crying out, then turned its snout and engulfed his head in flames.

Puck shied away, disoriented, and the she-dragon grabbed him with its talons, raking deep, long slashes across his chest.

He snapped in distress, and the she-dragon returned a howl of its own as he crushed a foreleg between his jaws before falling out of range of its writhing tail.

Seconds later, his wings flared open, checking his descent, and then he rocketing upward. Once more, the she-dragon met him head-on, but a body-length away, he feinted and passed neatly under, slashing once more at its belly with his horns. Then he was gone for a heartbeat, before curling around for another cross.

From her watchtower, Sabrina cheered, punching her fist. She felt suddenly and inexplicably hopeful, proud, _possessive_. _We're gonna win_ , she thought fiercely. _We're gonna go home._

But this time, the she-dragon was ready for Puck. As he made a second underpass, a single powerful downstroke catapulted its body upward and out of his reach. In the same move, its wings clapped to the skies and it dropped straight onto Puck's back. Trapped under its bulk, he was easy prey as it tore at his wings. Puck's bellow ricocheted off the mountain, driving Sabrina to her knees.

 _Not his wings. Not like the jabberwocky_ , she thought, not daring to say the words, lest they become truth. _Please, no._

Puck rolled in midair, frantically trying to shake off his attacker. As it held on, viciously pulling with its claws, he whipped his tail against its body, spikes lashing its side, but it continued its relentless focus on his back.

Sabrina blinked. Abruptly, Puck began to shrink, disappearing rapidly beneath his massive attacker, who paused, confused. Just as suddenly, he materialized in all his scaly glory behind the bewildered she-dragon, as if out of thin air, and Sabrina realized what he'd done - he'd turned back into a flying boy and slipped easily out of her clutches.

"Brilliant!" She yelled, euphoric with relief. "Oh, way to go, Puck!"

But something was wrong - one of his wings was hardly moving, instead limply waving, as the other flapped hard to keep him aloft. Foam was streaking visibly from his open mouth as he flew, now only at half-speed. Sabrina watched with dread as the she-dragon reared her head back, back, back, her body almost vertical, suspended in the sky with with the wind in her wings as she assessed the smaller, broken dragon before her.

Even Sabrina recognized Preparation Inferno by now. Puck would need a miracle, something better than all the magic in the world. Could dragons be burned to death? She didn't intend to find out.

In desperation, she prayed - to anyone or anything who might be more powerful than either of them in that moment. _If you save him, I will never hurl a nasty word at him ever again._

The she-dragon exhaled a wicked streak of liquid fire straight at Puck.

Too weak to duck, he offered his side as a shield, and Sabrina's brain short-circuited.

 _All the magic in the world._

 _Magic._

 _The wand_.

Sabrina scrambled to her feet and pulled it out of her pocket - a short, nondescript stick not much bigger than a pencil. In her hand, she felt it pulse with power and immediately, her insides churned with a familiar nausea. Behind her eyes, a pounding began, the cadence of madness.

But there was also a raging power that swelled and grew. She felt strong, hungry, _angry_.

She raised the wand, tracking the she-dragon as it emptied its fiery gut like a blowtorch. There was no time to think of a spell; she just needed to destroy the brute - anything violent and explosive would work.

A tremor shook the air before her and, high up in the sky, the she-dragon recoiled, thrown backward by the force of whatever had shot out from the wand.

Sabrina's legs gave way. The wand was drawing its power from her, siphoning all her energy. If she didn't stop now, she might not survive.

But if she did, _Puck_ wouldn't.

 _No. This is Puck. He_ can't _die._

Her world slowed before her eyes as if in a dream, and she watched the she-dragon return on tattered sails and catch Puck on the neck, talons slashing. His mouth opened in a roar of pain, and the dark red head immediately drew back.

And with a rush of dread, Sabrina understood: yes, dragons _could_ be burned -

\- from the _inside out_. The monster was going to pour fire into Puck's open throat and light him up.

Hot rage erupted in Sabrina to rival the the animal instinct of a hundred bereaved mother dragons.

 _No. You can't have him. He's_ mine.

On her knees, she threw her arm forward, willing all her strength into the wand, conjuring a counter spell.

 _ColdColdColdColdColdColdColdColdColdCold. . ._

Once more, the air shivered, and Sabrina felt a massive surge build inside her, like her heart was death and her body could not hold it in.

Her head exploded in psychedelic color.

She retched and fell, paralyzed and blind.

In the air, the she-dragon's breath froze.

As did its snout, then its head, neck, and shoulders . . . all the way down to the tip of its tail, turning rigid and glass-white, a hologram of an ice sculpture projected against the night sky. For a split second, it hung suspended from the stars.

Then it dropped.

Sabrina didn't have the strength to move even a limb, let alone crawl to the ledge to watch the creature plummet. But she heard it - the cracking and crashing of brittle glass and rock as it landed and smashed into millions of harmless pieces.

She exhaled, feeling consciousness drain from her as she remembered her bargain with the powers-that-be.

 _Not another nasty word - if he lives._

 _Please,_ she felt herself losing even that last thought, _let him live._

* * *

 **A/N: Two updates in a week! So overachieving, I know, but wanted to get this out for you guys to enjoy over the weekend. Sorry if it's left you in no better a place than the earlier chapter. Let me gloat for just a second.**

 ***evil laughter***

 **Okay, I'm done. Next chapter will be . . . interesting. And might make you blush. Just sayin'.**


	5. Chapter Four

**CHAPTER FOUR**

When Sabrina came to, the world that swam into focus was a huge green eye that blinked a scaly lid inches from her face.

Her subconscious offered a single word: _dragon_ , then dredged up a jumble of extremely unpleasant memories. Instantly, she jerked awake.

Screaming would've been a typical reaction. _If_ she were the sort to _be_ typical.

She shot out her fist instead, and felt it thump against something cool and hard.

The eye disappeared and a hiss rained down on her.

"Whaddya go and do _that_ for?"

It was Puck's voice, but louder, deeper, _wilder_.

Raising her head to track the sound, she found herself staring at the green dragon that was Puck. Somewhere in the back of the cave, a warm light flickered, and she saw a small fire burning. Puck must have lit it to keep the cold out.

Scowling - unmistakably, even for an animal - he bared razor-sharp teeth at her, which glinted in the firelight.

"Oh," she said, still too disoriented to truly feel the relief at seeing him alive. "It's _you_. I thought -"

"They're all dead," he barked, still sounding grumpy. "We got the whole happy family."

"Are you sure? There could be reinforcements . . . others from the uh . . . flock -"

" _Clan_. Not flock. Not everything that flies is a bird, you know. And yes, I'm sure. I've been watching the sky, and all I've seen are stars and moonlight."

And what gorgeous moonlight it was, pouring into the lair and bleaching everything silver and sharp shadows, except where the orange flames threw dancing silhouettes on the craggy walls and roof.

"It's still night? How long was I out for?"

"I don't have a watch, if that's what you're asking. I guess . . . 'bout an hour, max. I thought you'd died, actually. Good thing I dug the wand out from your hand, or you would've."

Sabrina turned her head and saw the wand resting against the base of the nest, a dark shadow of a line far out of her reach. She felt an unreasonable desire to hold it again, a throbbing need to feel its power, to be once more invincible. She blinked hard, fighting it.

"An hour?" She struggled upright, her head groggy and heavy. "And you've been a dragon all this time? Were you just waiting for me to wake up so we could fly home?"

Puck shook his head with a rattle of armored plates and shifting scales. "Uh, no." He lifted one of his wings with great effort and Sabrina remembered that she'd seen it hang limp during the battle.

"Oh, no. Broken?" She asked with sympathy.

"Luckily, not. Hurts like anything but I think it's only dislocated."

"That's good news, right?"

"Depends on whether it can be fixed. It'll have to be reset."

"Can you do it yourself or do you need help?"

"Whaddya think I've been doing all this time while you've been sleeping?" He huffed, and little tendrils of smoke wafted upward from his nostrils. Sabrina grimaced when she realized she could look right into them. "I can't. I think _you_ have to do it, or we'll be stuck here forever."

"Well, how do I do that?" She got shakily to her feet. "I've never even set a shoulder before - a human shoulder, I mean. Are . . . wings any different?"

"Get on my back and I'll talk you through it."

She tilted her head to look, and got a crick in her neck.

"Um, wouldn't it be easier to just turn back into . .. you?"

Puck made a strangled noise before hissing, "No. Just. . . climb up, okay? Do you wanna get back to camp or not?"

Sabrina glared, but it was sadly impotent against a hulking beast whose foreleg alone was longer than she was tall. With a disgruntled sigh, she vaulted off Puck's knee and scrabbled up his scaly back, wincing at the pain in her own side.

"Now what?" She called out when she was at last perched atop him, her feet cramped between the shifting plates along his spine. She tried not to look at the gashes along his back, at the blood that was still slick in parts.

"Feel for the socket," he instructed. "It's below that nub of bone . . . no, to the right. . . I mean left. . . left. . . more left. . . yeah, there - oowwwrooaaahhh!" His bellow of pain echoed around the lair.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Sabrina jumped back, mortified. "Your skin. . . hide . . . it's too thick to feel through."

"No, it's fine. You got it. Now the ball needs to shift back in there. It's . . . oh, just feel the other one so you know where it's supposed to be."

Sabrina took the next half minute or so to explore Puck's back, trying to ignore his hissing protestations each time her fingers slipped across tender flesh and came away sticky. Finally, when she thought she knew what to do, Puck hunched, bracing himself, and Sabrina shoved.

"Ngggh. Harder!" He ordered between clenched teeth.

She set her shoulder against it and pushed, but it was like trying to nudge a medicine ball into a soup bowl.

Puck bellowed, snapping at air. "Are you even _trying_ , woman?" He twisted his neck around to her and Sabrina saw pain and tears in his eyes.

"I'm doing my best!" She yelled back, then immediately regretted it. Puck, too, said no more, and blinked away. Under her feet, she felt his body rise and fall with his breaths as he collected himself.

"Again," he growled, "try again."

She tried three more times before finally giving up. "I can't, Puck," she panted. "You're too big. I'm just not strong enough. Why don't you change back and I'll try again then?"

"Not gonna happen."

"Why not? Are you . . . stuck?"

"NO. I . . ."

"Stop mumbling. I couldn't hear you."

"I don't have any clothes, okay? I'll be starkers!"

Sabrina gagged. "What? What happened to them?"

A disgusted grunt. "I lost them in the change."

" _Lost_ them? But you've always been able to turn into different things and back again with your clothes on!"

"You mean like walruses and rhinos? Those were small enough that I could still somehow keep my clothes. Becoming a dragon this size, though - the clothes never make it. I can't explain it to you, okay? They just don't. This is why I don't turn into a dragon very often. It's . . . inconvenient."

"Oh." Sabrina was suddenly - and very awkwardly - speechless.

Puck fixed her with a bald stare, which reminded Sabrina of looking into a stained glass window in all its glistening beauty. Until his pupil dilated, the dark vertical slit flaring wide, and he blinked - the sudden and alarming flicker of raspy scale over slippery membrane. The hairs on her arm stood.

His scaly shoulders slumped - such an benign gesture for a creature that could've crushed her against the wall without a second thought.

"Fine. Fine. I'll turn back. If only just so we don't die of starvation here."

"No! Wait!" Sabrina panicked. "Um. . . I . . . uh."

"Control yourself, Grimm," Puck said, and she detected a teasing note in his voice, which was horrible and oddly alluring at the same time, especially magnified ten times by his current size. "We can't afford to have you pass out at the sight of me - we need you conscious so you can fix my wing, remember?"

Sabrina colored and stamped her foot on his back, even though she was sure he hardly felt it. "Don't flatter yourself, Puck."

"Don't need to," he rumbled back, sounding smug. "I _already_ take your breath away and you know it. Now, you wanna get down first or not? I'm all for compromising positions but I thought I'd be chivalrous and not assume."

Sabrina had never scrambled down anything so fast in her life.

Seconds later, the dragon that was Puck shrank before her eyes, the dark green of his reptilian hide fading and blending into the golden skin of a seventeen-year-old boy. Sabrina didn't want to watch, yet couldn't bear not to - heaven help her, she was simply mesmerized by the incredible change.

That, and the horror that was Puck's back.

He emerged from the shift crouched on his hands, a position that - Sabrina noted with relief - offered far more modesty than she'd expected. But if she were bashful at seeing more of him than she'd ever imagined (which she might've had from time to time, if she were honest), it was quickly overshadowed by her shock at seeing the condition he was in: lacerated skin, wings once pristine and beautiful but now ripped almost to shreds, one of them hanging at an unnatural angle from his shoulders. She'd known he'd been torn, of course, but she hadn't realized just _how_ torn until there were no longer the dark scales to hide the full extent of it.

"Oh, Puck!" She breathed.

He turned his head to glance at her, and she sucked in another breath - his face and chest, too, were a mass of angry cuts. She wanted to run to him, then remembered he was naked and, pitying or not, she wasn't sure how close she wanted to be right then to a boy without pants.

"Y'know, it doesn't really work if you're way over there." Puck said after a while of watching her watch him.

"What doesn't work?" She swallowed, feeling her face heat.

He rolled his eyes and waggled his twisted wing at her, then cursed as he remembered why he shouldn't have been moving it in the first place.

"Ah, right," Sabrina remembered and warily approached him, still in his crouch. She laid her hand on his back and tried to repeat what she'd done to his dragon wing. His diminished size certainly made it easier to prod and poke, but she almost wished he still had scales - the feel of his warm, bare skin wasn't doing her concentration any favors.

"Can you get a move on?" Puck grumbled. "I'm getting a cramp sitting like this."

"Stop rushing me!" She snapped back. "I'm _trying_. Okay - I think I'm ready to do the shoving thing."

He nodded and set his jaw, and Sabrina pushed.

He grunted, all his muscles tensing, then gasped, "Didn't work. I can't . . . ugh. . ."

"One more time," Sabrina said, resting one elbow on his back for leverage, drawing a loud hiss from him as she reopened at least three cuts.

"Sorry," she told him, "but I felt something give that time. Let's do this. Ready?"

Once more, she pushed. Suddenly, there was a pop and Puck threw his head back, letting loose a stream of curses in a language Sabrina didn't recognize. His head fell forward again and she waited until he'd stopped panting before asking if he was okay.

He slowly moved his newly-reset wing and exhaled in relief. Turning his face once more to her, he offered a tired grin.

"I'm going to stand up now," he announced ominously.

Sabrina steeled herself and nodded, frozen.

He stood.

But kept his back to her.

And sighed in exasperation.

"This isn't going to work, you know," he said. "I can't keep my back to you forever. I'll have to turn around at some point and you're just going to have to faint and get it over with. Heaven knows you've been dreaming of this moment all your life, anyway. And besides, if we're going to be married someday, you might as well get used to . . . this. One, two -"

"No! Waitwaitwait!" Sabrina yelled. As Puck glanced over his shoulder in impatience, she grabbed the hem of her henley and, with all the panache her hurting side afforded, yanked it over her head.

Puck's eyes widened in awe.

"Uh. . . wow. I didn't think I'd have that fast of an effect on you, Grimm. Not even waiting for foreplay, huh?"

Sabrina, standing in just her jeans and bra, glowered at him and held out her shirt. "Get your mind out of the gutter, Stinker. This is your modesty loincloth."

He raised an eyebrow but reached behind him without a word. He wrapped the shirt around his waist and tied the long sleeves together behind his back. They did precious little to conceal anything and instead made him look absolutely ridiculous.

But when he turned around at last, Sabrina blew out a breath, feeling the tension dissolve between them.

While hardly presentable, Puck was now at least . . . safe to look at. And look she did, as much sympathetic of his injuries as curious about how he'd changed from a scrawny eleven-year-old kid to the warrior he now was.

Yes, even coated in dragon guts and sporting a sobering collection of wounds, he was not a bad sight. At. All.

And, clearly, he thought the same of her, because he whistled.

"Looks like you got some action, too." He stared at the ugly bruise circling her midsection. "Wanna compare battle scars? I bet I win."

Sabrina sighed.

Right. This was _Puck_. Fighting was always more interesting to him than . . . anything else.

"I'm happy to lose," she said, shaking her head.

Without warning, Puck marched up to her and grabbed her arm, making her jump.

"What are you doing, Puck?"

"Chill. I'm just checking for injuries, duh. Anything broken?" He poked her bruise. She recoiled, swatting his hand away, but he was back again, prodding and feeling her side until he was satisfied that it wasn't as bad as it looked.

"It's a miracle my insides aren't all mush," she confessed. "I honestly thought I was going to die."

"Nah. He wouldn't have smooshed you; dragons have incredible fine-motor skills. I should know - how else do you think I managed to get that wand out of your hand without breaking all your fingers?"

"So you didn't think I was in real danger?"

"I didn't say that. I just didn't think he wanted to _kill_ you, not really; he wanted fresh, live meat for the hatchlings. But yes, since you asked, there _are_ many other exciting ways you could've died."

"And you were going to say it served me right for running off and getting taken."

Puck looked uncomfortable.

"Ah, well, I'm. . . er. . . maybe I shouldn't have yelled at you. For trying to fight the dragon, I mean. I was just angry that I couldn't . . . um, protect you and all, you know. You make it so hard sometimes!"

Sabrina glanced at him in surprise and saw that the tips of his ears were red. It wasn't an apology - not technically, but it was as close to one as she'd ever heard from him.

"Why do you care?" She blurted out, for want of something - _anything_ \- to say.

Puck frowned, and the moment was lost.

"I didn't say I did! I meant that I really shouldn't have given you flack for something _I_ would've done myself if someone threatened my family. Even if it wasn't the smartest move for a human without wings to take on a flying beast."

"Thanks _a lot_!" Sabrina snapped. "I _told_ you I didn't have a lot of options - or time! It was either me or someone else at that campsite who did something, or we'd all be fried."

"That dragon wasn't going to fry anyone! He was _hunting_! Even _you_ realize that now, don't you?"

"Well, _excuse me_ for not having the wits to Google 'dragon behavior- how to tell if a dragon is going to kill you by fire or by eating you alive'! I just worked with what I had! And what I had was . . . was . . . I just wanted to keep my family safe, okay? And if he was hunting, I'd rather he took me than Daphne, or Basil!"

"And I'd rather he took _me_!"

"Well, _you_ weren't there to throw your name in the hat, were you?"

"Why d'you have to rub it in?"

"Because if you hadn't been such an obnoxious pig to me all day, Dad wouldn't have made you go off alone with him to talk sense into you - oh, don't pretend it wasn't about that, Stinkface! And you would've been with me, and you could've helped, and I wouldn't have been alone to make that stupid, horrible, dumb decision that almost got _you_ killed!"

Puck blinked, gaping.

" _Me_? Got _me_ killed?"

Sabrina rubbed her hand furiously across her eyes, disgusted that at the tears that had come from nowhere. She pointed at the sky. "Yeah. You almost _died_ up there! And don't act like such a hotshot, doofus, because you _know_ you could've!"

Puck opened his mouth to deny the possibility of him ever being conquered by a dragon, or any other thing in all creation, then shut it again.

"Yes," he admitted at last, his face serious, the cuts and smears of dried blood a macabre mask that couldn't quite hide the emotion in his voice. "I thought I might, too, and that if I did, you'd be alone and the dragon would go for you next, and . . . that sucked even more than him taking me out."

It was Sabrina's turn to gape. Did Puck just admit he _wasn't_ Mr. Perfect? Well, wonders never ceased. The fire in her blood unexpectedly sizzled out and she thought back to that look on his face that had so unsettled her earlier.

"When the dragon was . . . crushing me," she said after an awkward pause, "all I could think of was that I didn't want you to see. I didn't want you to . . . hate yourself because you couldn't do anything to stop it."

They stared at each other for a long moment.

"That was a neat trick you pulled with the ice blast thing," Puck said at last. "Even if you were completely boneheaded to be using a wand at all, with your magic problem."

"And you've got some seriously awesome dragonslaying skills," Sabrina returned. "Even if. . . if. . . _dang_."

Slowly, the corners of Puck's lips pulled upward into a smirk, and his eyes traveled down Sabrina's body.

"Y'know, between the two of us, this is an awful lot of skin," he remarked roguishly. "Wouldn't Henry throw a fit if he saw us now, all cosy in this cave?"

"Shut it, Filthbrain," Sabrina answered. "And, for your information, no, he wouldn't. Look at this place! Too much of a Neanderthal caveman vibe for anyone, least of all my Dad, to take seriously."

"On the contrary, this was _exactly_ how I imagined we'd end up - me clubbing you over the head and dragging you back to a place like this. Besides, imagine what he'll _think_ when we turn up in camp tomorrow, dressed like this. Or _undressed_ like this, I mean."

Sabrina flushed and attempted in vain to glare at Puck, who winked at her.

"Can you even fly tomorrow?" She changed the subject. "You look like you've been through a meat mincer."

"I _have_ been through a meat mincer. And sure, we'll get home tomorrow. I heal fast - one of the perks of being an Everafter. Don't _you_ heal fast, too, now that you're immortal?"

Sabrina considered this - maybe she did; she'd just never noticed before. Well, tomorrow she'd know.

"Speaking of healing," Puck rolled his head, as if trying to unkink his neck, "I should get some shut-eye. It accelerates the process."

Sabrina looked around the lair. She didn't fancy lying down on the cold stone floor without a shirt; maybe the nest might work - if not for the bones of the unfortunate creatures who'd lain in it before her. As if on cue, her body gave an involuntary shudder, from the thought or the actual chill in the mountain air, or both. She wrapped her arms around herself, still pondering her dismal sleeping options when she felt Puck take her hand and pull it gently away.

"C'mon, Smelly, you gonna stand there all night?" He nodded to the back of the cave where the fire was now mostly embers. "Might as well get cosy."

"I'm not sleeping with you! You have no pants!" She sputtered, then realized what she'd just said.

Puck rolled his eyes. "In your dreams, Grimm. I just thought you might wanna not freeze to death, seeing how hard you'd worked to stay alive earlier. Look, if my gorgeousness is making you uncomfortable, I can change back into a dragon. You can even have your shirt back that way."

"Ew, no, that's okay. You can totally keep it. I don't know that I'll wanna wear it again." _Ever. And your gorgeousness isn't what's making me uncomfortable - it's_ how much _of it is on display that's the problem. I mean, not that I even noticed you were gorgeous. Or anything._

"Suit yourself." He sat on the ground against a wall and tipped his head back, eyes closed. Sabrina fidgeted for a moment, fighting the shuddering chill that wracked her body, then joined him. He shifted to lift an arm over her head, wrapping it around her. She stiffened at the feel of his skin on hers, sticky and crusty, and at the stench of dead things coating him that hit her nostrils afresh. No doubt they'd smell even worse with each passing hour they sat incubating in the warmth of the lair. What a paradox that they'd be so intimately tangled, sans most of their clothing, and her only thought was how to keep from throwing up.

She chuckled at the irony.

"What?" Puck's eyes peeled open.

"Nothing. I just . . . never mind."

"Insane." Puck murmured, closing his eyes again.

Sabrina's mouth was still stretched in a grin as she explained, "It's just that . . . this might be the longest we've ever gone without fighting."

"Yeah, well, having no pants has that effect. I feel exposed and vulnerable. Excuse me for not feeling up to fighting."

Sabrina laughed out loud. "No. It's actually nice - not fighting, for a change."

Puck was quiet for so long that Sabrina thought he'd fallen asleep. Then, he spoke again.

"I'm glad you're not dead."

Sabrina smiled. "Same".

She exhaled, feeling some of the tension leave her body as she leaned against Puck. For the first time since she'd woken up, she let herself fully appreciate the thought that she was alive, that they both were.

"You ever think about dying?" She asked after a while of listening to him breathe.

"Nah. After four thousand years of _not dying_ , it's kinda pointless."

"Ah. Immortal mindsets. Ever invincible. Even with dragons about to incinerate you. Speaking of which, could you always turn into one?"

"Eventually. Started out just belching fire at random things when I was a kid. I mean, a real _young_ kid."

Sabrina nodded as she remembered one frigid night not long after they'd first met, when he'd burped a ball of flame to start a fire to keep them warm. They'd just failed to save her kidnapped parents, and it was the first time Puck had ever been even remotely nice to her.

"Then I figured out there was more to it than just the fire-breathing." Puck's voice drew her back to the present. "Like teeth, and scales and becoming really, really big. Mother showed me how it was done. I almost wet myself the first time. I mean, a lean, mean killing machine, dealing death and destruction with just my mouth? Totally awesome."

"I'll bet," Sabrina said sarcastically. "Except for the ones who're killed."

"Aw. Are you worried? I'd never kill _you_. Not even for fun."

"Good to know."

"So . . . do you?" Puck asked after another stretch of silence.

"Do I what?"

"Think about dying?"

"Of course. Especially during the war. Seems everyone was in danger of dying one way or another. But before that, too, when Daphne and I were in foster care. Some of the people we stayed with . . . let's just say I never took it for granted that I'd wake up the next morning. The weird thing was I wasn't scared of dying myself. I was just afraid of what would happen to Daphne if I did, if I wasn't there anymore to keep her safe."

Puck was silent again, chewing his lip. Then he took her hand with his free one, staring at their fingers.

"Found the translation," he murmured in wonder.

"What translation?" Sabrina asked, puzzled, but her face was hot and she didn't pull her hand out of his.

"Something Henry said. Not important. Anyway, now you know how I feel about keeping you safe. Look, I don't think you're useless. I just think you're more fun alive than dead. And I'm committed to ensuring that stays the way it is."

"More fun? So you can prank and humiliate me, you mean?" She tried to tug her hand away, but Puck held it fast.

"No, stupid. So I can do _this_."

And he leaned in and kissed her.

It was as awkward as their first kiss, except it tasted worse - of dehydrated mouths and teeth that needed brushing, and the metallic tang of blood and other disgusting things that had no business being on their faces, let alone their lips. Sabrina groaned at the disappointment of it all - _three_ kisses in all their years together, in declining levels of hygiene and with no hope of progressing toward anything even remotely more enjoyable.

 _At least we're both conscious with this one - and alone,_ she conceded; during their previous kiss, Puck had been in a coma, and _everyone_ had been watching, including her parents. It was the most mortifying experience she could remember.

Puck pulled away and looked at her, eyes wide. Sabrina stared back.

 _So this is how it begins_ , she thought. _One kiss, after years of bickering, and suddenly we're married. I'd always wondered about that trip to the future - if it were something we chose, or if it were chosen for us._

"Well?" Puck searched her face, obviously disappointed that she wasn't swooning and begging for more.

"Nothing. I . . . never mind."

"You didn't like it."

"No! That's not what I - it was. . . it was okay."

" _Just_ okay? The Trickster King does _not_ kiss _just okay_! He is _amazing_! He is -"

"Third person talk? Sure sign of delusion, wacko. And I wasn't thinking about how you kissed! I was thinking about something else!"

"How could you think of anything else when I was kissing you? You're supposed to be in rapture! Your brain should've short-circuited!"

"Puh-lease, Puck. It was an okay kiss, alright? It wasn't bad. It just wasn't . . . great. I mean, we're filthy, thirsty, and covered in muck. _And_ you have no pants. It's just not the best circumstances."

"It's the best I could do given we just almost _died_! What's _wrong_ with you? I finally. . . finally - I thought -" He threw his head back, hitting the wall in frustration, "- whatever."

He released her hand.

Sabrina stared at him, stunned and angry. "I didn't mean - look, at least I didn't punch you this time, right?"

Immediately, she realized how much worse she was making this. Puck shot her a look so pained and scathing that she actually recoiled, stuck as she was with his arm still draped - albeit stiffly now - around her.

What _was_ wrong with her? She'd secretly loved him for years, been crushed that he didn't seem to return more than shallow teasing and crass insults, and she'd continually see-sawed between stoic surrender and foolish hope. Now, he'd finally done something clear - something neither of them would ever dismiss as a slip, an unintentional Mixed Signal, or even a prank - and she'd _snubbed_ him. Cruelly and tactlessly. Just like she had when they were eleven and he'd kissed her for the first time. Except that _this_ rejection - the one she'd effected with just her careless excuses and vapid eyes, was far, far crueler than when she'd socked him in the belly and called him names. She couldn't remember the last time she'd hated herself so much.

"I'm sorry," she said, and really meant it.

"Yeah, me too." His voice was flat as he turned away.

Sabrina bit her lip, completely at a loss. This was totally new ground - she wasn't even sure who he was to her without the insults and the arguing. Had he been trying to find a way to tell her the truth all this time, only to have her callously and repeatedly swat it away? Had she been not only blind but heartless? Had it gotten so bad that he'd had to talk to her _Dad_ about her? Was that what he'd meant when he said he'd found the right translation?

If so, maybe she owed him one. Or twenty - all the different kindnesses she knew. And maybe, maybe she could begin with simply being honest.

"I don't hate you," she sputtered, heart thumping, "In fact, quite the opposite. . . and for almost as long as I've known you. I've been horrible to you because I didn't know how to tell you without you laughing at me and making a joke of it all. And this weekend - and for a while, already, you've been pretty decent - awesome, really, - and I've been such a pig. I'm sorry, Puck."

Puck was perfectly still, at once beautiful and bizarre, clad in her shirt and painted crusty with the courage of his battles. He didn't look at her, only stared at his own hands, strong and calloused, no longer the little stumpy starfish shapes of childhood. And he took in her words, the profession she'd made as well as her accusation - no, it was a _confession_ \- about their continual tirade of bitter words that made it so hard for her to believe he'd felt the same way.

He blinked once, twice, held out his palms - almost a man's, she realized - and turned at last to her.

"Ditto." He said, and his lips turned up, but there was a melancholy behind his expression. "Look at me - I'm not a boy anymore. I grew up for you. I don't know what that means, but it must mean something, right? It makes me wanna fight dragons for you, anyway."

" _With_ me," she grinned back a little self-consciously. "I think it was a team effort. . . and we make a pretty good team."

"As long as you don't keep running off and chasing trouble. Teams stick together, y' know. That's how it works. Think you can try to remember that?"

"Okay."

Still smiling, although it was more mischievous now, he let his gaze drop to her lips.

"So. . . speaking of sticking together, you wanna try that kiss again?"

Sabrina felt her hair stand on end and her insides twist. _Yes . And no. I'm scared of feeling nothing. I'm scared of feeling everything. Maybe I don't want to find out we aren't meant to be together. Or that we actually_ are _._

"How about we wait till you have some pants?" She opted instead to deflect him, and then squeezed her eyes shut, praying he wouldn't stoop to a vulgar response and make it worse.

He didn't. But his face fell at what he heard as yet another rejection. He turned away, even while he kept his voice light. "Oh well - your loss! "

 _So easily pissy_ , Sabrina thought. She laid her hand on his arm and left it there until he looked warily back over his shoulder. His one visible eyebrow was skeptically arched.

"I mean it, Stinkpot -" she promised, "- _when_ you have pants."

He blinked as his brain caught up, and let his smirk tell her he understood.

* * *

 **Very long A/N: A kiss only four chapters into a story? New record, people. But if you were hoping it'd be one of those fan-self-oooh-baby types, sorry to disappoint. You know those movies in which the intrepid knight slays the villainous beast/dragon/Kraken/whatever and the maiden swoons and throws herself at him and they kiss? My reaction was always, "Ew. Sweat! Blood! Can't this wait till after a bath?" Practical to a fault. Not a single romantic bone in my body (but I'm trying).**

 **Thanks for all the reviews and follows! I'll respond to them in a minute, but first let me say this about this story: much as I think the bickering-and-tension at this age is more canon than SweetSoulmateS+P (case in point: _Nineteen_ , which was my version of an S+P romcom), it's _exhausting_. Fighting takes so much energy, and leaves you so empty after. I think angst has been romanticized to the point where it's easy to forget how miserable (and pointless) it really is when indulged in without sensible limits. What I'm trying to say is fighting has to be cyclical in order to be sustained.**

 **Thus, spoiler: things are going to get better for S and P and then they'll get worse, and then they'll get wonderful and then So. Much. Worse, and then they'll get _rock-bottom_ and then it looks like the end. And _then_ the dragons appear. **

**So you know these dragons we've met so far? Them's not _The_ dragons, folks. And I hope you'll stick with me on the ride to the finish, so you can meet them.**

 **Over to you now - I'm collapsing the reviews to the last two chapters into this one:**

 **TastyKake: So glad you like this. You have no idea how wonderful it is to hear you say that I'm not totally butchering the older S+P characterization. Thank you.**

 **susiequeen300: no worries- the boy's a fighter. And hopefully these two will get their act together and not die. . . yet. As my mother likes to say at the low point of a movie: "Don't worry - he's/she's the hero, so he/she can't die." (Clearly she hasn't read recent YA novels).**

 **CupcakeSparkleGlitter: Hope you liked this update! And I'm glad you liked the weird narration style. When I was writing it, I imagined reading this aloud to a bunch of children and inserting snide commentary. Then decided to actually write it in. Haha!**

 **Octaviawithstarsforeyes: we talked via PM already but forgot to say that (1) looky - P isn't dead! and (2) I can't bring myself to do gushing reunions, unless it's satire.**

 **Readingtillmidnight: Thanks! Sometimes, after finishing a chapter, I think, "how weird is it that I'm feeling catharsis/abject misery over fictional characters?"**

 **silverwombat: How absolutely gorgeous to see your review and that you're back! I remember how happy I was whenever you reviewed while reading Brink. I shall PM you later to do justice to the kind words you left in your review, so just a quick THANK YOU here for now. Talk soon!**

 **And finally,** **Happy Thanksgiving, y'alls! We got snow. And I miss the sunshine. But we'll be with family, which is lovely. I'll update again after the break. In the meantime, safe travels (to those leaving town) and happy eating!**


	6. Chapter Five

**CHAPTER FIVE**

When the sun was high in the sky, they woke. Every muscle was sore from the battle and sitting up against a cold wall all night, although sometime before dawn, Sabrina had slumped onto the floor and developed an excruciating crick in her neck from wedging her head between Puck's hip and her own shoulder. When she finally forced her eyes open and her body upright once more, she found Puck with his fists against his temples, groaning.

"I feel worse than crud," he grouched. "I _hate_ camping."

Sabrina silently agreed, and let it pass that it wasn't so much the camping that shot the crud factor through the roof as the deadly monsters and mortal peril.

Puck turned his head painfully and blinked at her, startling her with the brightness of his eyes in the sunlight. She'd always thought they were unfairly beautiful, even for an Everafter and especially for a boy, but this close, and haunted by the memories of the night's conversation, she was struck dumb.

Unfortunately, Puck noticed.

"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful," he said shamelessly, and Sabrina remembered him saying the same words when she'd first realized how cute he was under his usual disguise of filth and frivolity.

She made a sound of disgust as she stood. "Nobody's beautiful first thing in the morning, and covered in yuck, besides," she lied.

"Yes, I am," Puck declared, rose and stretched languidly.

Sabrina quickly ducked under his spreading arms to avoid being swatted in the face. In the daylight without the modesty of shadows, she could see every line of his body, every muscle defined; all the filth and wounds, rather than taking away from the overall effect, made him look like a sculpture carved from flesh, living but not quite real.

It made her want to touch him, if only to prove it.

At least, that was what she told herself.

She squeezed her eyes shut and willed her thoughts to other, more pressing matters.

"We should leave. Can you fly?" She asked him.

He rolled his shoulders and neck, then released his wings, testing them.

"Good to go," he assured her carelessly as if he hadn't been cringing in pain as one of them had dangled uselessly from his back just hours earlier. Sabrina considered her own body, relentlessly aching in all kinds of places, and resented him for his ability to heal from brink-of-death wounds as if they were insect bites. Obviously, simply being immortal wasn't worth squat when it came to injuries.

"The sooner we get back, the sooner we can eat. I'm starving," Puck complained as he opened one arm to her in invitation.

Sabrina frowned before realizing he meant to fly them out in his human skin. And then frowned even more when she realized that it was _a lot_ of human skin to be pressed against her own.

Puck made a face at her.

"Or we could go by Dragon Express," he sighed. "You're such a prude, Sabrina."

"Shut up," she mumbled uncomfortably. "I'm - I'm just not ready for . . . that, okay?"

Puck smiled wickedly, but his eyes softened as he bit back all the scandalous things he'd planned to say to embarrass her.

"Dragon Express it is." His tone was benign. "You want your shirt back?"

She shook her head with her lips gummed together and refused to look in case he offered it anyway.

"Sayonara then," she heard him say, and then his voice _moved_. From about twenty feet up, he called down, "All aboard!"

In something akin to awe, Sabrina began climbing onto his back, convinced that no matter how often he changed into a dragon, she'd never get used to it. Although this time, she noted with satisfaction, his scaly hide was unmarked and whole, the metallic green flawlessly catching the light pouring into the lair.

Puck turned his head to check that she was seated securely, then unexpectedly nuzzled her belly, chuckling out puffs of smoke as Sabrina burst into laughter. She pushed his huge head away, completely blindsided by this suddenly affectionate side of Puck. It struck her then how much of him was yet unknown to her, and she felt a sudden thrill that he might be allowing her a peek at the person he was behind his walls. Yes, she was definitely on board with this.

 _And wouldn't that be a miracle?_ She felt her heart suddenly warm toward the boy who up till then had only ever been a pain in the rear. She rested her palm on his scaly neck as they took off and absently stroked it.

She could have sworn she heard him purr.

* * *

It felt like they'd hardly been in the air before Sabrina felt Puck descend.

"What's wrong?" She yelled over the noise of the wind.

"Landing!"

"Here?"

Puck touched down in a clearing in the woods, folding his wings neatly against his sides.

"Thought it'd be safer not to come in flying," was his delayed answer. "I mean, they don't know I can turn into a dragon - all they'll see is one of the bad guys. And, just in case they've gotten reinforcements or something, I don't wanna be shot down. Anyway, I've got my stuff not far from here - I can get dressed and we can just walk back to camp like nothing happened."

"Your stuff? Isn't that back at the campsite with all the rest of ours?" Sabrina asked, surprised.

Puck tossed his head in scorn. "Me sleep in a tent? You've gotta be kidding. I sleep under the stars! I found a good tree close enough to where you guys were - I figured I could keep watch from there, just in case some monster came for you."

He eyed her. "Which it did."

"Lead on," she told him, ignoring his comment.

They found the tree and Puck's grungy old backpack under it, along with a canteen of water. Sabrina swallowed involuntarily at the sight of it, and Puck grunted low in his throat, "Go ahead - you're probably all but dried out."

She didn't need to be told twice, and drank thankfully, stopping only when she remembered that Puck was just as dehydrated. _Do dragons get sore throats from breathing fire?_

He shook his head when she held out the canteen to him. "In a minute. It'll go a longer way when I've changed back."

Sabrina turned away as he morphed once more into a boy. She felt him take the canteen from her and heard him empty it in noisy gulps. Then came the sounds of him rummaging around in his backpack.

When she gauged it safe to turn around, Puck was crouched on the ground, had thrown out his clothes and was pulling something else out from the very bottom of the bag. He tossed it over his shoulder and Sabrina caught it: his old green hoodie.

"Thought it might be less scandalous if you had something to wear, too." He laughed as he stood, bending over to step into his pants. "Wouldn't want your dad getting the wrong idea, right?"

Sabrina pointedly kept her gaze averted. "He'd kill us both."

Puck paused mid-step. "Oh, I don't know. It might be fun to see how far we can take this, though."

"Are you out of your mind? No way! You don't wanna cross my dad."

"You think I'm scared of _your dad_? He's a pathetic mortal!"

"Who might never let you come within a hundred miles of me if he thought we were . . . you know."

"As if! I'm King of Faerie! I can do whatever I want!"

"Not with fathers, Puck. _You_ may be the lawless King of Faerie but _I'm_ still seventeen, and still under his roof. Besides, I thought we weren't going to say anything about . . . us. Not yet, anyway."

"Secrets! Ooh. And if -"

"Sabrina? Puck?"

They were startled from their plotting by a new and _very_ familiar voice.

Puck cursed, freezing with one leg in his shorts, just as Sabrina choked out, " _Dad?_ "

They were in _so_ much trouble.

* * *

And that was how Henry found them - Sabrina, missing a shirt and with her arms in Puck's hoodie, just about to lift it over her head, and Puck missing _everything_ and partway into his underwear. Henry had been combing the woods around the campsite in ever-widening circles for clues, bodies - anything that might've helped him decide what to do next. His daughter had been snatched by a dragon- or so everyone had said, but he had his doubts and even if it were true, he wasn't dumb enough to sit around waiting for the monster to bring Sabrina back. Then Puck had disappeared and neither had returned, even long after sunrise. Not knowing if they were still alive, he wasn't willing to leave the campsite on the slim chance that they'd somehow escaped and were trying to find their way back, half-dead from injuries. He couldn't count how many times he'd searched this very spot with the others, each time thinking there might be something he'd missed in the dim light, or which a stray wind could have blown back that way overnight.

And then, when he'd heard voices, he'd had to pinch himself to be sure he wasn't dreaming, because one of them had sounded so much like Sabrina. He'd run, almost delirious with hope, toward the sound - and then he'd heard Puck's voice, too, and thought, _He saved her! I knew I was right about him! Oh, blessed, blessed boy!_

And now _this_.

At first, he couldn't process what he was seeing. Then, he couldn't decide whether to collapse from relief that they were both safe, or yell at them for what clearly was a very, very compromising situation. All manner of explanations converged in Henry's sleep-deprived mind: there _hadn't_ been a dragon - they'd simply snuck off to make out in the woods like frisky rabbits; there _had_ been a dragon, but it was in cahoots with them so they could meet in the woods to make out like frisky rabbits; this whole camping trip had been staged by the family so these two youngsters could run away to make out in the woods like frisky rabbits.

And the looks on their faces! Caught in the act! And after he'd spent all that time giving Puck a pep-talk on how to manage his daughter!

"What the heck?" Was all Henry could say, feeling the blood drain from his face as he contemplated what might well be a very personal betrayal.

 _But no_ , he made himself think clearly - _they were both covered in blood and filth. It couldn't have been just a tryst in the woods; something violent and gory had actually happened. So there must have been a fight of some kind. And since the two of them were here, alive, they must have won._

"Dad!" Sabrina said again, red-faced and stunned, as she quickly threw the hoodie - _that boy's_ hoodie! Where were her clothes? - over her body and glanced apprehensively at Puck, now frantically donning his boxers and grabbing his jeans from the ground.

"It's not what it looks like, Hank!" Puck protested, pulling on his pants and trying to walk and hop and finally letting his wings lift him off the ground to finish his task.

"Nothing happened, Dad!" Sabrina added hastily. "Puck became a dragon and lost his clothes and I gave him my shirt and -"

" _Became_ a dragon? How many freaking dragons _are_ there?"

"Three," Puck explained, more calmly now that he'd gotten his pants on at last. "But one of them was me, like Ugly said. The other two are dead. We killed them."

" _I_ killed them," Sabrina corrected him.

"With _my_ help! _I_ set them up for you! _You_ just got to deliver the blow with your itty bitty little magic stick!"

"Yeah, right! I saved your _life_! You wouldn't be here if not for me, buster!"

"And we wouldn't be in this mess if not for _you_ pulling that idiotic distracting stunt!"

"Can't you let it go? I _told_ you I was trying to protect everyone! I can't believe -"

"STOP! I don't care who killed whom!" Henry bellowed, then immediately sagged in defeat. "Just . . . get dressed and come on back to camp. I'll have words with you - _both_ of you - about this later. Right now, everyone will want to see that you're okay."

Meekly, the two teenagers obeyed. Sabrina was glad that Puck had the sense not to offer anything snarky on the way back to the family. There were exclamations of relief and some tears at their return, and Henry didn't mention what he'd seen other than "I found them in the woods, collecting themselves. They weren't in the best shape."

Relda very sensibly offered them more water and some food and then they told their story. Puck left out the parts about losing his clothes, wisely deciding to explain it to Henry in private later. He hoped Henry would believe him; if not, he'd have to sacrifice another outfit to demonstrate the proof.

"Wow!" Daphne said when they'd finished. "I didn't know dragons still flew around . . . like, for fun. I mean, I thought they only came out during the war. And I thought we wiped them out then."

"Nope," Puck shook his head. "They're still plenty around. They don't usually bother people, though."

"Can you turn into a dragon now?" Basil asked, his eyes huge with admiration for the older boy.

"Uh, no." Puck hesitated, catching Sabrina's eye. "Maybe another time, Baz."

"Well," Henry announced firmly, "I think we've had enough adventure for the rest of the year. Let's head home. Sabrina looks like she could use a bath. . . badly."

"Well, Puck's filthy, too," Sabrina blurted out defensively. "You can't really tell because he's all healed now but you should've seen him last night - he had injuries in places you wouldn't believe and . . . uh. . ."

Puck narrowed his eyes in warning but it was too late - she was already choking on the enormous foot in her mouth.

* * *

"So what happened out there?"

Veronica and Henry were sitting in Relda's living room, a bottle of wine between them. Henry personally would've preferred something _much_ stronger but it was Veronica's turn to pick and he wanted her in a good mood, given what they were about to discuss. The camping equipment had been unloaded and stuffed back in the shed just minutes earlier, the adults retired thankfully to their various rooms and the children dispersed throughout the house, followed rapturously by Relda's dog Elvis. Sabrina and Puck, who'd been uncharacteristically reticent on the ride home, had immediately and just as silently taken off to the shower.

 _Separately_ , Henry hoped.

"Is Sabrina okay?" Veronica prompted her husband when it became clear he was stalling.

In as few words as he could get away with, Henry told her.

Veronica's eyes widened, hardened and then closed, as if trying to shut out something painful.

"Did they -?" She asked when he was done.

Henry shuddered. "Don't know. They seemed very adamant that nothing happened, that it was all the result of changing into a dragon and back again. And even when I got him alone just now, he still stuck to his story."

"But he's always been able to turn into . . . things without losing . . . anything."

Henry threw up his hands. "Don't ask me. I think I believe him, though. It doesn't seem like Puck to lie to save his own skin - or pass up a chance to gloat. But -" Henry sighed, " - those two . . . can't keep them apart; can't keep them together either, without something very bad happening. They're like oil and fire. Dangerous. Very dangerous."

Veronica was quiet once more, thinking.

"And yet he keeps an eye on her, protects her. Has all this time, at least. She's seventeen, honey. Well, so's he, in a manner of speaking. They're just being teenagers. They're clearly attracted to each other, and don't know how to handle it. You've talked to Puck; maybe I should talk to Sabrina."

"About what? Being . . . _safe_?" He sounded almost scandalized. "You wanna give them the _go-ahead_? He's not just some hormonal teenage kid, Ronnie. He's not even human. He -"

"Is this about your Everafter prejudices, Hank? I thought those were behind you."

"No! Well . . . no, no. It's not the same. It's . . . he's lived for hundreds of years; he's practically ancient. His family - his kind - they're magical, and unpredictable, and extremely dangerous -"

"You've said 'dangerous' three times, did you know?" Veronica cut in. "We've known Puck for a long time, and he's not like Oberon - or Titania. What are you afraid he'll do to Sabrina?"

Henry sagged, and rubbed a hand over his face.

"Break her." He deflated audibly. "Break our little girl. That's what I'm afraid he'll do. And not even intentionally - he doesn't even have to try; he just has to be himself - this magical, royal hotshot - and she'll fall for him, and he'll grow up and realize he doesn't want to be with a human, and he'll leave and she'll be broken. Because he's not like other boys, Ronnie - _look_ at him!"

"And _other_ boys are safer for Sabrina?"

"No! Well . . . yes. Yes. She can handle them. _They're_ normal. They can be . . . managed."

"Managed." Veronica laughed mirthlessly. "I think you need to give them both a little more credit, sweetheart. Sabrina isn't a little girl anymore, and she's certainly _managed_ Puck all these years, just as he's also put up with a lot of _her_ . . . issues."

Her voice dropped. "And no, I'm certainly _not_ giving them the go-ahead. Personally, I don't think they've even gotten that far. But . . . if they've _already_ . . . " she sighed and let Henry fill in the blanks, "well, we're gonna have to cross our fingers that they know what they're doing, and that we've taught her well. And besides, Puck isn't as shallow as you think he is."

Henry looked away. "I know he isn't - I've been talking to him, haven't I? He's not a bad kid -"

"Again, he's not a kid. He's -"

"I know, I know - centuries old. Don't you find that even _slightly_ disturbing?"

"You mean, like you and Goldie, who was old enough to be your great-grandmother's great-grandmother?"

Henry frowned. "Touche."

Veronica graciously dropped the subject. "Anyway, as Puck keeps aging, those years are going to catch up with him."

"In a good way, we hope."

"Yes. With your help."

They let the statement hang between them like a campaign banner and when Veronica broke the silence, her voice was even softer.

"He hasn't got a father now, not that Oberon - when he _was_ around - was a wonderful parent by any stretch of the imagination. You - and Jake - are all he has."

"There's Canis," Henry pointed out, only half-sincere.

"And no one doubts that he cares for Puck," Veronica conceded, "but Canis isn't a father . . . I mean, not that Jake is . . . though I'm sure they got in lots of male bonding time during their travels, but . . . well, for whatever reason, Puck comes to _you_ for. . . things."

Henry snorted as he glanced sideways at his wife. "It's Sabrina. He does it because he knows it bugs me."

" _Or_ he does it because he actually does need someone. All boys do. You, of all people, should know what it's like, growing up without a father."

Henry said nothing.

"And, from what I heard, he didn't get to say goodbye, either," Veronica finished gently. "He was in that cocoon at the time, wasn't he, when Oberon was murdered? You both have a lot in common, like it or not. And loving Sabrina is just one of 'em."

"Oh boy, I can't wait for _Daphne_ to start dating. Or Basil." Henry finally found his voice, and Veronica chuckled at the heavy sarcasm in his words.

"I'll have a word with Sabrina anyway," she promised, suddenly looking very stern, "just to cover all the bases."

"Literally," her husband noted darkly.

* * *

It turned out that she needn't have bothered - Puck disappeared overnight and didn't turn up for breakfast. Or lunch.

By dinner time, even Sabrina, who'd feigned disinterest all day, had no choice but to mention it.

"Where's that freak baby, anyway?" She said to no one in particular.

"Probably scared off by you, sis." Basil offered with a grin, and even though Sabrina knew it was a fair assessment, she felt strangely hurt.

But Relda, pottering about the kitchen, was unconcerned.

"Don't worry about that boy, liebling," she assured her granddaughter. "He's probably gone off to be on his own. He used to do it all the time before you and Daphne came along. Sometimes, we didn't see him for weeks. But he'll be back - at least when he's run out of food. I found the leftovers of our meat pie missing from the fridge, and that's not going to get him far."

Daphne cut in, "Unless you count the two boxes of Pop Tarts we had, which are also gone."

" _And_ the bag of Cheetos," Basil added with a huff.

* * *

True enough, Puck returned two days later.

Sabrina had been staying up late that night reading - and trying to keep her mind off Puck and his reasons for running away - when she heard the front door open. She didn't know of anyone else they'd be expecting at that hour, so she left her room and padded downstairs to investigate.

There in the kitchen, with his head in the refrigerator, was Puck.

"I heard you." His muffled voice drifted out from among the leftovers. "You're not as sneaky as you like to think."

"Where the heck have you been?" Sabrina hissed, worry and general unease making her sound angrier than she really was.

"Out in the woods. You should try it sometime - it's very peaceful. Oh wait - you already did, and got carted off by a - what was it? Oh yeah, _dragon_."

She ignored his jab. "What were you doing in the woods?"

Puck extracted his head at last, a leg of cold roast chicken in his mouth, his hands full of more food. He slammed the door shut with his foot.

"Oh - this and that. Man, the Old Lady is awesome. I bet she saved this chicken just for me. Yum."

Sabrina frowned at him. "You could've called."

Puck raised his eyebrow at her, and chewed in silence. There were twigs sticking out of his hair.

"I called you like, twenty times. Your phone was off." Her blood was beginning to boil.

"Lousy reception in the woods. So much for 'unlimited coverage'. I should sue for misadvertising." Puck shrugged and dug his phone out of his back pocket. "Oh look - thirty-six missed calls. I thought you said you could count - that's way more than twenty. And yep - they're all you: Grimm, Grimm, Grimm, Grimm, Grimm, Grimm -"

"I get it! Stop already!" She exhaled and turned away, close to tears. "Whatever, Puck. You're such an ass. I don't know why I even bother."

"I'm going home," Puck blurted out suddenly. "To Faerie, I mean. For good."

Sabrina froze, then slowly pivoted to face him, not comprehending.

He rolled his eyes dramatically. "Thank you for your overwhelming response! And because I know you were too shy to ask why, I'll tell you: it's about time. I've been away for too long. And staying here with you lot - I mean, don't get me wrong, the free food is great and all, but a guy can do _so_ much better, especially if he's King."

Sabrina's jaw dropped in disbelief, just before fury overtook her.

"You ungrateful piece of trash! After everything Granny did for you! And Mr Canis! And Mom and Dad and - and . . ."

 _And me. Sure we've had our differences, but I tried, damn it._

She swept the back of her hand savagely across her eyes, grinding her teeth and hating herself for letting him see her cry. She turned and marched out of the kitchen. She couldn't believe how lame she was being - a near-death experience with dragons (two!) had left her emotionally unscathed, but some rude boy had just announced he was leaving and she couldn't even hold herself together. If it weren't almost midnight, she'd have screamed with rage.

But Puck grabbed her arm.

"No - wait!" He said as Sabrina tried to shake him off. "That came out wrong. I - Sabrina, wait."

She kept walking.

Puck threw himself in front of her and grabbed her shoulders but she shoved him off and, for good measure, backhanded his face. He blocked and pinned her back against him, his arms tightly around her, even as she struggled.

"Let me go, moron!"

"No. Sabrina, _please_. Let me start again. I didn't mean it like that. I - ooof!"

Sabrina had kicked his shins, but he held on.

"Stop that, you little -!" He hissed in her ear. "Or . . . or. . . I will . . . uh. . . bite you."

"You wouldn't dare!"

"I'd dare anything! But I want you to just listen, okay? I'm sorry. I _am_ going back to Faerie, but it's not because I'm ungrateful. I mean, the Old Lady took me in when . . . well, when I had nothing. It's just - it's what Henry said -"

"Dad? _He_ told you to leave?" In her surprise, Sabrina stopped squirming and stood still against him.

"No. Well, not exactly. It's -" he sighed. "It's _us_ , Grimm. Look at us - we're _always_ like _this_. All we ever do is fight. We're no good together. Maybe we'll be better apart."

She hadn't expected that. She blinked, lost for words, as Puck took up the slack once more, his voice gentler now; sad.

"I thought if I left- if I went home - maybe we'd both be happier. We wouldn't be so angry all the time, and maybe. . . maybe we can be better together someday. If you want. I mean - I still . . . I . . . you're still kinda important to me. Surely you know that."

All her fight drained away and she wilted in his arms, leaning against him. Through her own body, she could feel his heart pounding.

"Why now?" She whispered. "Was it something I did? Was it because I got taken by that dragon and you had to come after me? Did my Dad chew you out because of it?"

Puck rested his chin on her head and when he tightened his arms around her waist, it was no longer to keep her from escaping. "No," he sighed back. "And no, Henry didn't even say anything about the camping trip."

"Then what _did_ he say?"

Puck's face hardened. "He just said, 'Don't break her.' _You_. He meant _you_."

She felt him sag as he continued in a much softer voice, "And I didn't know how else not to if I stayed. So . . . I'm going."

Sabrina's mind reeled. Somewhere under all the forbidding and disapproving and curtailing, Henry was trying to _protect_ her. No surprise - he was her father, after all. But to hear those words from _Puck_ \- the insinuation that her heart was like glass, that at seventeen she still couldn't take care of herself and - worst of all - that the two men would _conspire_ to hatch what amounted to a babysitting campaign -

 _Men. Boys. Fathers. Whatever. I'm just so sick and tired of needing to be kept safe._ White fury rose like bile in her throat . . . and found it had nowhere to go.

"So . . . Faerie. Just like that?" When she finally found her voice, it seemed to come from far away.

"Hey - it wasn't an easy decision! It took me three days! I sat under the stars and sought the wisdom of the cosmos. I even fasted!"

"You mean you ran out of food."

"Same thing."

The sound of their breathing filled the space between them until she could no longer stand it.

"When're you going?"

"Tomorrow."

Sabrina closed her eyes, feeling the loss like an open wound. She wanted to say they could work it out if he stayed. She wanted to promise to stop snapping at him, to argue that they _weren't_ always bickering, or hurting each other. She wanted to remind him that they could sometimes even stand together in the same room, his arms around her and she happy to stay there forever.

Just like they were now.

But in some deep, rational layer of her subconscious, she wondered if he were right: they were explosive together more often than not; toxic and barbed and cruel even when they didn't mean to be. He didn't know how to say he cared, and she didn't trust him enough to believe that he did. Maybe they both needed this.

Even if it felt wrong to imagine even a single day without him in it.

"Can we say goodbye now?" She said finally. "If everyone's watching us tomorrow, I might say something I don't mean, just so they. . . just because. . . "

He nodded. He, too, didn't want to leave her believing it was easy for him to go.

"Turn around," he murmured.

She did, slowly, until they were face-to-face, as his arms relaxed their hold on her. His hand trembled as he brushed her hair from her face.

"If you'd died on that mountain," he said, and couldn't continue.

"Don't." Sabrina lifted her fingers to his lips, shaking her head. "Let's not get mushy like that. Not when you're leaving tomorrow."

He nodded, his face strangely serious, his eyes searching hers. She wondered at how it felt to simply look at him; not a cursory glance or a glare, but a _lingering_ \- on any and every part of his beautiful face, as if to both behold it for the first time and memorize it like it were the last. And he, too, allowed himself to drink her in: the gold and the blue, from the tiny freckles on her cheekbones - seventeen, exactly as many as she'd had when they'd first met - to the tantalizing curve of her lower lip.

Then, slowly, he grinned - that wicked smirk which she'd always associated with all the worst things about him.

Until now.

"I'm wearing pants," he smugly informed her.

She got his meaning right away, even as she watched his eyes slide upward to meet hers.

"Well, then," she teased, "what are you waiting for?"

For the fourth time, he kissed her.

Had her eyes been open, she'd have rolled them at the irony that, just as he was leaving her, they'd finally gotten it right. She didn't care that he tasted like last night's chicken, that he hadn't had a bath in the three days he'd been out in the wild outdoors meditating with the universe. Or that they were possibly being reckless in the moment, unduly yearning in anticipation of their tragic parting. Instead, she made herself _feel_ him - the softness of his hair between her fingers, the urgent pressure of his mouth on hers, the wiry strength of his arms, the pert tip of his nose over which her own lips dallied when they finally drew apart.

"Well, that might just convince me to stay," he said thickly, and Sabrina watched as he swallowed. Blinked. Vacillated.

His sigh announced his decision; a second later, she echoed him.

"What's this mean?" She asked hesitantly.

"Dunno. Never done this before. Just . . . not see each other for. . . forever, I guess."

He sounded so despondent that it was strangely funny.

"Well, I'll probably waste away from missing you," she murmured with mock melancholy, fingering the drawstrings of his hoodie.

The corners of his mouth lifted slightly. "I'm counting on it."

They fell silent, and in the void, the mood changed.

"Can you . . . be gone by morning?" She didn't meet his gaze, and found that her hands were shaking. "Please?"

He frowned, although she couldn't see it. "Well, I _was_ gonna tell everyone I was leaving - unless . . . _you_ wanna do it?"

"It's just easier . . . for me."

She leaned into him then, and breathed him in - the first time she'd allowed herself to; before, there'd only ever been the stolen whiff as he'd wandered by, the indulgence of a forbidden curiosity that was accompanied by a sudden speeding of her pulse. He smelled of trees and moonlight, she thought. And . . . just like any other boy who'd stood a foot too close in the hallways at the start of a school day, before they were corrupted by sports and deodorant that malfunctioned in the summer heat: sweet. Warm. _Human._

 _Why can't we always be like this?_ She thought with regret. _I was just getting used to it._

As if he'd read her mind, he dipped his face to hers one final time. _This will never last; we only know to leap from turbulence to turmoil; the laws of entropy willed it so._ And as long as he stayed, they'd descend once more into the chaos that'd been their way for as long as they'd loved each other and not known it.

So he nodded and promised, "I'll be gone before sunrise."

* * *

 **A/N: Gonna cut out the long author commentary now that we're deeper into the story and finally getting places.**

 **Thank you for your reviews! Here are the ones I didn't get to via PM:**

 **Guest 1 (11/23): . . . and now they're apart :( Happy Thanksgiving to you, too!**

 **Guest 2 (11/23): Yes, the dragons got the short shrift. One would hope that the humans/the Fae boy might have some remorse, right?**

 **Guest 3 (11/23): *blush* subtlety, my friend.**

 **Arabella Quinn: Oh dear - I hope this chapter didn't make you cry, too. I'll try to post updates frequently!**

 **Tasty Kake: Hold on to that thought - that Sabrina is normal. She is, and yet she's not, right? Her world is too bizarre to be truly normal, I feel.**

 **~QaS**


	7. Chapter Six

**CHAPTER SIX**

He was gone before sunrise.

In all honesty, Sabrina hadn't expected it to be quite that hard.

After all, it wasn't as if they'd spent every waking moment together before now. After the war, they'd gone their separate ways: Puck took off to see the world with Relda's younger son Jake while the Grimms moved back to the city so Sabrina, Daphne and Basil could attend regular, non-Everafter schools. Then, when the wanderlust had worn off, Puck surprised everyone by returning to Ferryport Landing instead of Faerie to assume the throne. With Sabrina - whom everyone had assumed was his _real_ reason for leaving the kingdom in his brother's hands after Oberon's death - hundreds of miles away, no one could fathom why he'd chosen the sleepy little Everafter town over the splendor and privilege of his court. Henry had suspected it was really because Relda and Tobias (or Canis, if they forgot to use his real name, or were just feeling sentimental) were the only family Puck had truly felt a part of, and it didn't take a genius to see why he might've preferred them to the dysfunctional and volatile alternative that awaited him back home. It was a theory that Puck had later confirmed by loudly insinuating that certain old people were going to need a lot of help running the place without wearing their feeble selves out, and proceeding to boss Tobias out of the backyard so his pixies could take over his firewood chores. Tobias had protested, claiming his right to chop his own firewood on account of his years of experience with an axe, only to have Puck scoff, "Pooh! They're getting lazy with no one to harass and no wars to fight. Let them chop wood! It'll keep them on their toes."

Veronica, who'd personally witnessed this tactless exchange, privately thought it was rather sweet, not that she'd ever say so to the irascible fairy boy.

Much as he remained a free spirit, Puck would make occasional side-trips home to his court whenever his royal attention was required to approve this or that, or - so he claimed - to take blood oaths in order to ensure peace with the countries that bordered his domain. Those sojourns home brought him within miles of the Grimms' apartment in upper Manhattan and he'd sometimes he'd pop in to "make sure they weren't being held captive at gunpoint by some madman, just waiting for someone to kick the door in and save the day". The girls grew used to having him turn up unannounced at the dinner table, and Basil, who adored Puck to the moon and back, was in rapture whenever the older boy was there to goof off with.

But everyone knew, of course, that Puck was really there to see Sabrina, and as she'd muddled through middle school without much of a social life, spending most of her evenings at home, he'd usually gotten his wish. They'd traded insults over the meal and punches in the living room after, and as the years passed and Sabrina became more adept with both her fists and sarcasm, the insults increased while the punches dwindled to shoving, nudging and - clearly - any opportunity to touch. It'd been entertaining to watch the change; everyone remembered how far Puck had come from the eleven-year-old ragamuffin who'd sworn never to age even a day, and who violently eschewed personal hygiene and brought table etiquette to brand new lows.

Everyone also remembered the day he'd started to use silverware.

It was subtle, the transition - one visit he was grabbing and scarfing; the next, he was fork-waving and spearing meatballs with his steak knife, and still the next, he was sitting with his napkin tucked into his collar and asking for the mashed potatoes to be handed to him.

 _Handed_ to him. As he wiped gravy off his chin with the napkin; an actual _napkin_ ; employed to perform a legitimate _wipe_.

Sabrina had practically gaped at him in amazement, the taunt about to launch off her lips when she'd caught her mother's eye and read in her stare the message, "This is a _good_ thing; don't make him think it isn't."

So she'd swallowed the words along with the rest of the meal, and was left to ponder the implications: the boy with dirt in his hair was growing up, and whether or not she'd been the initial cause years ago, he was coming around often enough to make it clear that she could very well still be.

This became their new pattern for the next five years post-war. Against a backdrop of phone calls and inane texts, they bridged the miles between New York City and Ferryport Landing with impromptu visits as well as planned vacations to visit Relda. All the while, Puck continued to age alongside Sabrina - a child growing into his body, like any other mortal boy on his way to becoming a man.

And because she grew used to having him constantly in her face, accessible in ways she never bargained for and didn't always appreciate, Sabrina conveniently began to forget that he was also a king, and that he belonged in another world she'd barely seen, let alone understood.

Until now, when he'd decided to return to it, leaving her behind with her thoughts in a hopeless muddle and an odd emptiness locked away in some catacomb of her soul. Nothing had changed, she reasoned within herself - by all accounts, this separation should've been just another permutation of one of them being geographically removed from the other. They'd always just said goodbye until circumstance and timing engineered another meeting; why should this version be any different?

Because there were expectations now, lines they'd drawn, doors they'd closed.

She'd almost hoped he might've changed his mind, and that he'd come tromping - as heavily as a fairy could tromp - down the stairs that morning after, hair tousled and grandly demanding a three-course breakfast as was appropriate for royalty. But the staircase remained empty long after even Daphne - their resident late-sleeper - had parked herself at the table for the morning meal.

Perhaps now she could focus on moving on without having to deal with him, she thought with some relief - after all, whenever he was in the picture, there was _always_ something to deal with. Although a small part of her (a _very_ small part, she rationalized) missed him already; his larger-than-life presence, his explosive energy, the very _noise_ of him - they were impossible _not_ to miss. But there were other things, too: the quieter aspects of who they were, his alwaysness, the knowledge that she could count on him to show - albeit belligerently - that he was aware of her, watching out for her.

It was - very simply - hard to be suddenly bereft. But she would adjust. She always did. Once she'd explained to the family, that is.

It did not go well.

Everyone assumed (semi-correctly) that they'd come to blows, that the Dragon Incident was the crux of it, that they were enemies now. And everyone took one side or the other, citing their stubborn personalities, blaming his pompous sense of entitlement, alluding to her impulsive disregard for the fragile male ego.

All except Relda, who looked sad and said nothing other than, "Maybe being King again will be good for him; he needs an outlet for all that power. He's magic, after all. And some time apart may not be a bad thing."

 _Magic._

With that, Sabrina was reminded once again that in spite of all their similarities, they were still utterly different.

* * *

Later, Veronica came to Sabrina's room while she was packing for their trip back to the city.

"So Puck's left, and you had to break the news to us," her mother began.

Sabrina shrugged, not really wanting to talk about it.

"How's that?" Veronica pressed.

"Well, I won't have to deal with his obnoxiousness for a while," Sabrina answered, picking up a pair of bright blue socks. "Hoo-big-fat-ray."

Veronica's eyebrow lifted. She couldn't remember the last time Sabrina had called him that.

"Must've been a heckuva send-off," she murmured.

A frown creased Sabrina's face as she struggled to keep her emotions in check. She didn't want to remember the kiss, didn't want to think about how, just when they'd decided to be apart, they'd finally felt _right_ together. And she certainly didn't want to imagine Puck being King of Faerie, being in his element, being _home_ , moving on, not missing her.

Her mother watched her, and wisely left it at that. After all, her anguish was plain to see - and if Sabrina was anything like her father, Veronica figured she would have more luck getting a tree to talk than her daughter. She stroked Sabrina's hair, then turned to leave the room.

"What if he doesn't come back, Mom?"

Arresting her in the doorway, Sabrina's voice was small, and Veronica had a sudden flashback: four-year-old Sabrina clutching her stuffed bunny as they stuck photos of their missing golden retriever all over lower Manhattan. But it wasn't just their dog - Sabrina had been walked out on far too much in her seventeen years and Veronica still carried enough of the guilt to hear the deeper layers in her daughter's question. She retraced her steps toward Sabrina's bed. The socks, she noticed, were still held tight in her hand.

"I doubt that even hell could keep him away, honey," Veronica said gently. "No one's crazier about you than that boy."

And she kissed her daughter's head, marveling at how much remained the same even years later.

"After us, I mean," Veronica qualified, cupping her daughter's face before turning to go.

* * *

With her mother's words resounding in her soul, Sabrina packed up her funk along with her clothes and set her face toward the new school year. Even then, it was strange at first, as all adjustments were; finding a new normal depended on so many things, like time and busyness, new and useful distractions.

Also, mindsets.

Sabrina resolved to make hers positive and independent and empowered - and all those other strong, forward-looking things that were the hallmarks of women of substance.

Like all the women in her family, whose shoes she didn't think she could ever fill, not that she hadn't tried.

 _I'm not twelve anymore_ , she told herself repeatedly. _I have a life. I have classes to pass, awards to win, careers to pursue. Places to go and people to meet;_ normal _places and_ normal _people. All the ones from my Everafter dimension belong just there - in that secret universe where I fight wars and slay dragons and wield magic. Two disconnected worlds, each with their own rules, safely separated. And never the twain shall meet._

* * *

Famous last words; she'd barely left the notorious Dragon Incident behind when Sabrina found herself eating hers.

Granted, the whole thing was meant to have been a charming idea, the way all good intentions start. So naturally, it was a disaster from the get-go; the very premise was fraught with _Oh Crud-_ ness _._

But let us backtrack a bit so as to fully appreciate the magnitude of . . . everything.

After moping for exactly four days (the time it took to drive home and get settled back into the rigorous schedule of junior year at Park Side High), Sabrina let herself send one text to Puck's phone. Just _one_. Initially, she'd had to stop herself from absently dialing his number to deliver a snarky one-liner, like she did in the days when they'd taken each other for granted. Then, when she'd paused with her thumb about to hit _Send_ , she'd stood in the middle of the room and rationalized: we never talked about this, and we certainly never said we'd have to take a vow of silence along with the self-imposed restraining order. Even then, it took her almost a half hour to compose, edit, delete, re-compose, edit, delete and re-re-compose that single text so that it conveyed _exactly_ the right amount of casual _just-checking-in-to-see-that-you-haven't-you-know-accidentally-stabbed-yourself-with-your-own-scepter-_ ness _._

Almost forty-seven hours - not that Sabrina was counting - went by before Puck replied. His text - clearly strung together in a matter of nanoseconds, was comprised of only three words: _Miss me already?_

Sabrina ground her teeth and chucked her phone into the far corner of her closet.

"I'm never speaking to you again!" She hissed at the door, then left her room in a huff.

Fifteen minutes later, she was back digging the phone out. On the screen: six missed calls.

"Huh," she fumed, "only six. Well, I suppose you were busy doing . . . whatever kings do."

She waited another hour - by then, the tally had hit fifteen - before dialing his number.

He let it ring _forever_ before he answered.

"Hello, honeybuns. Didn't even make it to a week, huh?"

"Shut up, idiot! I just wanted to make sure your subjects hadn't assassinated you."

"Assassination, riiiiight. Is that what they're calling missing and pining these days?"

"I wasn't missing _or_ pining! And you were the one who called me fifteen times! I'm just returning the call! I mean _calls._ "

"Hey - _you_ texted me first."

Sabrina snarled, and hung up.

The phone stayed silent for ten minutes, during which time Sabrina fought the urge to hurl it out of the apartment window, down to the street below.

When it rang at last, she snatched it up and connected, but stayed silent, stewing.

"Grimm? Sorry. That went . . . badly."

"You think?"

"Look, how'm I supposed to act? I just did what we always do, right? Joking and teasing and . . . stuff. I mean, _your_ text was kinda jokey, you know. And we did say we weren't going to be mushy, didn't we? Do you want mushy now, then? Okay, fine. Here goes -"

"No! Stop. I don't want you to be mushy! I just . . . why can't you just be . . . _normal_?"

There was dead silence for a few seconds, then, "Uh. . . because I'm anything _but_? At least according to you?"

Sabrina slid down the side of the closet and hit the floor.

"I don't . . . I'm just trying to adjust, to get used to . . . you not being around."

"But I've been . . . not-around before. Like when I was seeing the world with Jake."

"Yeah, but . . never mind." Sabrina pinched the bridge of her nose. _He wouldn't get it._ "So," she tried again with something far less contentious, "how's Faerie?"

"Now that its rightful and gloriously amazing ruler has returned, pretty good." And then Puck gave his report - the state of the monarchy and of the common people, rates of employment and unemployment, the changing face of the population, the legislative and judicial system that Mustardseed had set up, the economy and taxes and all the budgets for the military and education and housing and whether they wanted to assimilate into the modern mortal world or hold on to their revered traditions.

Sabrina listened in growing astonishment at each new policy that Puck recounted - he sounded nothing like the frustrated seventeen-year-old prankster she'd let walk away from her just a week ago. This Puck didn't speak with the arrogant disdain of the posh and pampered, didn't make light of the misfortune of the marginalized, didn't even complain about the responsibility he'd suddenly had to shoulder, the _work_ he had to do to keep his kingdom afloat.

 _Who are you and what have you done with Puck?_ She wondered. _I don't know whether to applaud or throw up._

"So," Puck finished, "It's a good thing I came back, because the place was a mess. Mother is stuck in her old ways, you know, just like Father was, and Mustardseed does what he can but even as regent, he hasn't got the clout. Or the personality it takes to get things done around here. People need to be put in their place! Too much whining and feeling sorry for themselves. Take that bunch of losers that came to see me this morning. I mean, sure, your family got eaten alive by harpies and you want revenge, but hello! This is a kingdom here, not a John Wayne movie! Sure, I'll put it on my to-do list for the next century: _wipe out harpie population in the West Desert_. But in the meantime, get your butts back to work in the fields so the rest of your village doesn't starve to death by first snowfall, morons! If you ask me, Grimm, the harpies got the wrong half of that family - they shoulda guzzled _those_ guys!"

 _Ah, there he is_ , Sabrina decided with relief.

"For a moment there, I thought you were going soft," she remarked. "Good to know you're still ordering everyone about."

"Bozos," Puck grunted. "You think the Everafter War was badly executed? Try Faerie politics, circa last decade. Father left me so much crap to clean up."

"But you don't regret going home, right?"

"Every day since I got here! I'd rather be harassing you 24/7 than do this job, but someone's gotta."

"Well, sounds like you've got your hands full for the next millennium," Sabrina said, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. "I guess we won't be seeing you for a while."

"Nice try, Stinker. You're not getting rid of me that easily. Even kings take breaks sometime. I think I'll pencil in a vacation every other week or so and come make your life miserable again. Keep you on your toes, y'know. Can't have you slacking off and _enjoying_ life, can we?"

"I knew this was too good to last," Sabrina returned, and something lifted inside her.

"Save me a kiss," he said, and she heard the smirk in his voice. "You know you wanna."

"Not so fast, buster. We're going to take this slow, remember? So behave yourself."

"I make no such promise," he declared grandly.

A fortnight later, pandemonium broke out in Park Side High.

* * *

 **A/N: Did everyone have a lovely Thanksgiving (those of us who celebrated)? Did we all eat ourselves sick? Or maybe that was just me.**

 **Shorter chapter today because the next one is ginormous again. Look out for it by the weekend!**

 **Thank you for all your reviews! I love how the Henry-Puck dynamic is going down with you guys. In the books, Henry was this protective father figure for Sabrina, and Puck was the thorn in his side that threatened his daughter's sanity. I can just imagine him saying to Veronica, "Why can't she choose better friends? What about that other boy Bradley who goes to her piano class? He's well-mannered, and his hair is clean." Hahahahaha! Not that Sabrina knew Bradley from music class, I mean. But couldn't you just imagine it? Anyway, the Henry-Puck thing is just getting off the ground, and we'll see more of it later. It won't be mushy, but it won't be yelling, either. I believe Henry is more 3D than that.**

 **Here are the reviews I didn't get to reply to via PM:**

 **Tasty Kake: Thank you!**

 **Guest (Liz): Yes, I believe Sabrina is both immortal (Everafter) and still human (and not Fae or creature).**


	8. Chapter Seven

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

By the time Sabrina heard about the intruder, the entire school was on lockdown.

Half her homeroom class was huddled in the girls' bathroom on the second floor; the other half was in the Chemistry lab, hiding under the tables. The teachers darted furtively between the rooms, checking on students and each other, and trying to communicate with the admin office while surreptitiously texting their own spouses. Everyone had heard only snippets of what had happened: some stranger had marched into the school without first checking in at the office, only to be accosted by Mr. Penhallow, the Head of Phy. Ed. and coach of the highly-decorated school wrestling team, who'd then found himself on the ground with a black eye and a dislocated shoulder, while his assailant publicly declared war on the staff and promised violent retaliation if anyone dared to lay so much as a finger on his person.

Someone had called 911, and Facebook, Instagram and Twitter were abuzz with sensational news bytes, selfies of terrified teenagers, farewell messages and last-ditch declarations of love. No one could say for sure if the intruder had a weapon, if he'd asked for a ransom, or even if he were cold sober or utterly insane, so they invented whatever they could and sent social media into the upper echelons of paranoia.

Next came the demands.

At first, amidst the noise and clamor in the hallways, no one actually heard what the intruder was shouting. Then, a name passed from one frantic pair of lips to the next.

 _Sabrina Grimm._

The intruder was yelling _for_ her.

When the rumors finally reached the girls' bathroom, Sabrina found herself the target of fifteen pairs of haunted eyes.

"What?" She hissed.

"He wants you!" One of her classmates whimpered.

Her first thought was that the Scarlet Hand had risen again and had come for her. Her blood ran cold, but she stood up from her crouch in the last cubicle, narrowed her eyes, and made her way to the door.

Immediately, hands grabbed at her, blocking her exit, as muffled exclamations of, "No! Sabrina, you can't go! You're crazy! Stay here! He'll kill you!" further judged the stupidity of her intentions.

She shook them all off and said, "Shush. I can handle this."

Her classmates knew she was tough - three years on the track team and numerous inter-district tae kwon do medals were testament to her mental and physical discipline - but this wasn't a sports tournament. There was a madman running amok in their school, and she was about to walk into a hostage situation.

But she ignored their wailing, quieting them again with a wave of her hands. "He asked for me, right? Maybe he wants to negotiate. Or something. Maybe it'll keep you safe."

And before they could stop her, she'd rushed out of the bathroom and into the corridor.

"I'm here! I'm Sabrina Grimm! What do you want, freak?"

Not the best way to open negotiations, but. . . well.

The entire school fell back in terrified silence, and then -

"Grimm! Finally! There you are! Your school is worse than a prison! Look at all these nut jobs! They wouldn't let me see you! They _attacked_ me!"

 _Puck?_

Sabrina groaned. _Kill me now. Dad will never let us live this down._

She followed the sound of his voice and found him in the next hallway, standing near the lockers. Were it a normal day, under calmer circumstances, she might've noticed that he'd had a haircut and that his leather jacket and dark jeans fit him unfairly well, the combined effect of which made him quite a bit handsomer than she'd remembered.

As it was, she met his look of indignation with a glower of her own.

Out came her fist, but he blocked it and frowned at her.

"I was expecting something a bit more . . . romantic," he said disapprovingly.

"You're lucky you weren't _shot_ , stupid!" She shoved him away and earned a shove back.

From the doors of the nearby classrooms, she heard whispers: "He's attacking her! She's fighting for her life! Quick, upload the video to Youtube!"

"Put your hands up, Puck," she muttered.

"Why?"

"Because they think you're a dangerous criminal! You can't just walk into a school these days, you know; there are procedures for visitors. Did you sign in at the office? No. So they thought you were an intruder."

"Well, that lunatic attacked me!"

"Mr Penhallow? He's a _teacher_! He was trying to get you to go to the office! Did you hurt him?"

"Not . . . a lot."

"Puck!"

"Hey, I held back, okay? And since when does anyone have to sign in at the office? Nobody did that at that Ferryport school the Old Lady made me go to!"

" _Because_ that was Ferryport, you idiot! This is New York City! Everyone's paranoid here! Oh, we're in so much trouble! I wish I could just pretend I don't know you so you can go to jail or juvy or whatever all by yourself, but it's too late now. I'll probably get expelled for this."

"That's good, right? Then you don't have to go to school anymore, and you can come help me in Faerie. We need a -"

"No! It is _not_ good! I can't believe you! I'll have to tell everyone you're my friend from a foreign country who doesn't know school rules, and it's all just a huge mistake. Maybe, if we're lucky, which I'm quite sure we're not, they'll let you off with only a warning."

"Friend from a foreign country? I'm _King of Faerie_ , I'll have you -"

"Shut up, and put your hands up!" She hissed back, then shouted, "It's okay! I'm sorry for all this! I know this guy! He's not dangerous! He's not from around here and he didn't know he was supposed to check in at the office! It's all a huge misunderstanding! Mr. Stevens! Mr Stevens, sir!"

The principal edged out of the office, cell phone in hand, looking green.

"Mr Stevens, I'm so sorry. I apologize for my friend uh. . . Robin Goodfellow, sir. He um. . . he grew up in a . . . uh. . . post-war camp uh. . . overseas and. . . um. . . tends to overreact in these kinds of situations. He didn't know he had to report to the office first, sir. He's safe, really he is."

"But he overpowered Mr Penhallow! The _wrestling coach_!" The principal sputtered out, even as he turned to access Sabrina herself for injuries. "Are you okay, Sabrina?"

"I'm fine. I'm sorry for all the trouble, sir."

Puck glared at him. "Of course she's fine, dolt! As if I'd ever let your feeble servants lay a hand on her!"

Sabrina shoved him hard. "Just shut up, Puck! Let me handle this!"

* * *

A record amount of forgetful dust was employed that day.

When the police finally arrived, Henry and Veronica were with them. While Veronica and Sabrina methodically distracted and dusted the entire population of Park Side High, Henry and Puck worked on Mr. Stevens. The principal re-emerged from his office looking entirely affable, if slightly dazed, and Puck and Henry solemnly shook hands, as some unspoken understanding passed between them. When the whole school, including the law enforcement officers, had been safely restored to pre-intruder unawareness, the two adults removed Puck and Sabrina from the premises and drove them home. Puck wouldn't look at Sabrina, let alone speak to her. Sabrina couldn't remember the last time a car ride had been that quiet.

Although - there _had_ been the drive home from the campsite following The Dragon Incident just a blink ago.

And the other time involving the duck riot in the park. Also, the egging prank that had backfired and taken all the shingles off the Mayor's roof. And the town residents still hadn't recovered from the infestation of skunks two summers back.

Sabrina decided to ignore the very disturbing pattern clearly emerging.

"Will Puck get arrested?" She asked once they were back in their apartment and Puck had disappeared to the bathroom.

"Fortunately not," her mother said. "I called in a favor with the chief of police and he's going to take care of it."

"You pulled strings with the _NYPD_?" Sabrina's eyes were huge.

"Chief's an Everafter and friends with Hamstead," Henry said tiredly. "Understanding chap, and fair - to mortals and Everafters, both. Mom helped him get this job, and after all the work she's done advocating for Everafters in the city, we've got friends in a lot of high places."

"Besides," Veronica added, "he's aware of the situation, and he knows Puck's family. We've also got Mordred on more damage control. It was fortunate no one got hurt."

"Except Mr Penhallow," Sabrina pointed out dryly.

"I got him fixed up," Henry said. "Good as new."

"You used _magic_ on him?"

Henry pinned his daughter with a look. "Yes, I did. And so did Mordred - he hacked into the internet and magically made all the social media attention disappear."

Sabrina's jaw dropped. "Hacked into the _internet_? The _entire_ internet? Can anyone even do that?"

"You can if you're Mordred. Years of gaming and a little bit of the right kind of magic. There was a rumor that the FBI tried to recruit him but he turned them down. Didn't want to be the government's lackey, or something like that. "

"Wow," Sabrina said, thinking that the sullen, taciturn son of Morgan LeFay had found the perfect niche in the world. "I can think of a few of my friends who'd like him to work on their internet presence."

"For the right price," Henry clarified grimly. "Mordred's got quite the racket going."

Sabrina nodded, then asked the question that'd been on her mind from the beginning of the conversation. "Why haven't you chewed _Puck_ out? He caused all this, but everyone's just covering it up."

Her parents shared a look.

"It was a misunderstanding." Veronica said, and something in her tone signaled the end of the discussion. But when Sabrina turned to leave the room, her mother said, more gently, "He only came to see you. He just bit off more than he could chew, trying to take on the public school system, too."

* * *

Puck sat in the roof garden, thinking. It was an unfamiliar thing for him, and his body rejected it initially, pulsing bile into his throat and making him gag. But he persevered, because he'd just had an extraordinarily frightening day, and he was trying to make sense of it.

First, he thought about how he'd decided to take a short vacation from his royal duties to visit Sabrina. He didn't say as much to Mustardseed - neither he nor their mother, who was bound to have found out sooner or later, would've ever let him live it down. Instead, he'd said he needed to check up on the Grimms as his departure from Ferryport Landing had been rather abrupt and he hadn't taken the time to ensure his security measures (three small pixies hidden in the trunk of the family car to "spy on Ugly") were still in place.

Next, he considered his plan to turn up in her school to surprise her. He hated schools, but he loved surprises, especially surprises that embarrassed Sabrina. It'd been such a foolproof scheme, too - he'd been so sure she'd blush and swoon at the sight of him sauntering through the foyer while students passed out left and right at his gloriousness. Instead, he'd been manhandled by a brute of a mortal, then accused of being a psychopath. As for the happy reunion with said girl, it was an utter disappointment - not only had she _not_ swooned, but she'd also hurled insults at him, downplayed his greatness and lied that he was some clueless import from another country. Finally, to rub it all in, they'd dusted everyone so there was no memory of his esteemed majesty ever gracing the sorry hallways of her miserable school in the first place.

As if that weren't enough of a catastrophe, there was _Henry_.

Up till the point when Henry and Veronica had made their appearance with the police officers (whom he felt he could've taken down with one hand tied behind his back), Puck had still had it together. He was the center of attention, he'd knocked out the loser who'd tried to tackle him, he'd found Sabrina, and he'd just challenged the head of the school in some kind of alpha male confrontation.

Total comfort zone, in other words.

But then Sabrina had made him stick his hands in the air like a pathetic spoil of war, and her father had frog-marched him into the principal's office (a very bad move to engage in peace talks on the _enemy's_ territory, he'd thought) and apologized.

 _Apologized!_ As in, clear-as-day-acknowledged-culpability _-apologized!_

Puck had been so flabbergasted that he'd spent the first two minutes just gaping at Henry as the older man had corroborated Sabrina's story, patiently explaining Puck's scandalous intrusion as no more than a cultural faux pas. Then he'd cast the boy a conspiratorial glance and muttered under his breath, "not that it matters, as we're going to dust him right after this." Puck could still remember the principal's jaw sagging as the forgetful dust fell over him in a glittering cloud.

Immediately after, Henry had snuck into the adjoining first-aid bay where the unfortunate Mr Penhallow had been lying concussed and shirtless, and tapped his shoulder with a wand he'd drawn from his pocket. Instantly healed, the disoriented teacher had sat up right into a puff of pink powder that'd wiped the focus from his eyes. He'd nodded at Henry and ambled out of the room, convinced he'd stopped by for an aspirin for a particularly annoying migraine, and not even noticed that he was dressed only from the waist down.

"School's a little different from what you might've remembered back in the day," Henry had remarked casually to Puck, as if he hadn't just altered the memories of two high-ranking educational officers.

"I wouldn't know, seeing that I've never been to any," Puck had replied, still indignant. "But today's happy field trip has convinced me that they're apparently staffed by crackpots. Who happen to be very unwelcoming and inhospitable. Are those the kind of people they're hiring to teach children these days?"

Henry had sighed. "Look - it's all just security measures. You understand security measures, right?"

"Duh. I'm your daughter's bodyguard. Not that she's a very cooperative client."

Henry had resisted reminding the boy that he'd have had more success if he didn't act as if Sabrina were completely incompetent. Instead, he'd said reasonably, "Well, the school has to protect its students, and this is how they do it. It can seem very . . . extreme, but when it actually saves lives, like in a real emergency, you can bet no one'll complain. You want Sabrina to be safe, don't you, when you're not around to keep an eye on her?"

The older man had paused. "Just like I appreciate you keeping an eye on her when _I'm_ not around."

And Henry had extended his hand.

While Puck had stared, like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming tank, at this completely incongruent show of honor. Instead of cutting him down as his own father always had, here was Henry treating him like an equal, acknowledging that at least one of the decisions he'd made in his long, conditional life hadn't been a mistake, might actually have been good. Puck had been so used to defending himself against the hard words with which Oberon had corrupted even the best of his son's intentions that he now hadn't even known how to react to someone who didn't think him a fool, who actually saw the value in something he'd done.

He'd swallowed and shaken Henry's outstretched hand without a word. It'd been as close as the two would ever get to an understanding, but it was more than Puck had ever been given by another man.

And then, when the smart comeback he'd been expecting hadn't come, Henry had added, "Besides, Sabrina would probably prefer that her friends not make a fuss when she returns on Monday."

"She has _friends_?" Puck had blurted out.

"Of course she does." Henry had suppressed a grin at Puck's genuine astonishment, as if the boy couldn't imagine her world with anyone apart from him in it.

Puck hadn't said another word after.

And now, alone with his rumination, Puck remembered his reaction when he'd discovered that Sabrina actually had a life outside their Everafter universe. Shock had been at the top of the list, for one - having lived together in the same town since he'd known her, he'd never noticed her with friends of her age. As far as he'd known, _he'd_ been her only friend who'd stuck around; anyone else with whom she'd tried to strike up friendships ultimately turned out to be evil and Sabrina had never talked about them again. Eventually, when the Grimm family had moved back to the city, he'd just assumed she'd be the same loner in all her other schools, going to classes and returning to her family at the end of the school day.

But to imagine her having a social life, hanging out with other mortals, enjoying and doing stuff with them - without _him_ \- Puck didn't quite know what he felt about that. A part of him was relieved that there were other people watching out for her when he couldn't. But another part of him was feeling quite left out, because it sure didn't look like she was falling apart without him.

Maybe leaving had been a mistake. Maybe he was beginning to lose her.

Maybe he already had.

Sabrina's voice broke through his introspection.

"Thought I'd find you here, Stinkpot. What're you doing?"

Puck instantly snapped back to reality, and smirked at her.

"Enjoying the view," he said wickedly, not shifting his gaze from her face.

Sabrina rolled her eyes, and sat down beside him. "It's all fixed," she told him. "Mom and Dad made it all go away. There's no record of you ever being in Park Side. Mordred wiped the entire internet. The _entire internet_! Pretty amazing, huh?"

Puck's face puckered into a grunt. Clearly he didn't think there was anything amazing about being forgotten by the whole world.

"So," Sabrina began again, "you came to see me. What for?"

"Apart from checking if you'd gotten yourself killed yet? No, no reason. And, apparently, you're still alive. So - mission accomplished. I'll just be heading back to Faerie now."

He rose and made for the edge of the roof, as if to step off and float away in a whir of wings and denial.

"Not so fast, fairy boy." Sabrina grabbed his arm. "You do not get to walk away and hope I don't notice you avoiding the question."

"Wasn't gonna _walk_." Puck argued under his breath, but he stilled.

"So . . .?"

"Why're you making this so difficult for me?" He scowled. "Look - can't I visit you for no reason? We always did, right? I just wondered what you were up to, that's all. Life gets boring without you around! Uh . . . to bug, I mean. Okay? Are you happy now?"

If she tried hard enough, she thought she could probably weasel his real reason out of him. But she looked at his face - pinched and tight-lipped - and decided to give him a break. She dropped her hand into his instead.

"That wasn't so hard, Stinkpot," she said, smiling as she felt his fingers tighten between hers. "I'm glad you're here, even if you did cause mass hysteria and knock out oh, only the toughest teacher in the school. Total overkill; not everyone's fought dragons, you know."

Puck's face slowly relaxed into a cocky grin. "You call _that_ tough? He was a _wimp_ , is what he was. He couldn't even take on a dragon _egg_ , let alone a dragon, and certainly _not_ the King of Faerie."

Sabrina didn't doubt it. No human should have to set themselves up against _that_.

"Anyway," she said, "that's all sorted out now. And. . . it's almost dinner time. You hungry?"

"Always," Puck complained. "Thanks to your puberty virus."

Sabrina ignored him. "Then let's go eat. I bet you haven't seen New York City in years - anything outside Central Park, I mean."

He eyed her, amused. "This a date?"

"That depends on how well you behave. You wanna jump off this roof or take the stairs?"

"Well . . . since we're talking _behaving_ . . . " He considered for a second. "Stairs."

"Really?" Sabrina's eyebrows shot up in disbelief. " I wouldn't have - whoaaaaaaaammmmpphh!"

She was suddenly in the air, with hundreds of feet of nothing below and only Puck's arms between her and a long hard fall to earth. He cackled as they plummeted down the back side of the building, past zigzagging fire escapes toward the quiet alleyway that hosted dumpsters and the occasional wandering hobo. She felt her stomach lurch into her throat and her head pound as Puck pulled out of the drop with an explosion of wings and hair and the crescendo of traffic. They landed, and Sabrina disentangled herself from Puck's jacket, where she'd buried her face to stop her scream from calling all eyes to them.

"Don't do that!" She hit him.

He widened his eyes in mock surprise. "Do what - save you from hitting the asphalt? Well, aren't _we_ hard to please today?"

* * *

Dates, Sabrina had to admit, were actually somewhat nice. They stopped first at Gray's Papaya for cheap hot dogs and juice, not only because it was scrumptious, but also because it was one of the few places in Manhattan that didn't charge an arm and a leg for a meal. It wasn't sit-down-candlelight-dinner romantic - they'd always been more comfortable with something more down-to-earth, and jostling with other patrons just for standing room was as down-to-earth as it got. Sabrina grinned as she watched Puck inhale two dogs, then push his way back to the front counter for more.

When he finally called it quits, they rode the subway to her favorite diner where they sat in a booth and sucked with sunken cheeks on - or so Sabrina claimed - the best malts on the planet. They talked about school and sports and Faerie, brothers and sisters, the bad fashion choices of the people on the train, whether it was more difficult to morph into a smaller or bigger animal, the likelihood that their crazy lives might someday be made into a movie, and the best ways to disarm an opponent with only their feet. They _didn't_ talk about themselves, the way they were falling into each other's gravity, the unlikely miracle that they'd been together two whole hours without a single argument.

(Well . . . except for their almost-headlock at the corner of 75th and Broadway over who was paying for what. It'd be asking for too much to hope for a night _that_ perfect.)

All the while, their eyes never strayed from the other's face, and each could feel it - the subtle shift in the tension between them, as all the true things that were hard to say without walls and shields became the sudden racing of a pulse, the corner of a smile, the sly brush of fingers along an arm.

Later, after their last stop at a drug store for discount hygiene supplies, Sabrina felt a laugh make its way up into her throat at the impossibility of who they were just then: the King of Faerie, shopping for sundries and carrying rolls of toilet paper under his arm, and the immortal heir of Wilhelm Grimm, his tour guide and date.

She let the word roll around in her head. _Date_.

She thought about what normal people did when they went on dates. Huddled over little tables and made eyes at each other. Stole kisses at the stoplights beside tourists wrestling with maps as taxicabs honked by. Napped on the subway with their fingers interwoven while they dreamed about their future together. _We're not quite normal_ , she reflected, _but tonight came pretty close._ Six years ago, when they'd been eleven and fighting a fairytale war, she'd never have imagined a day like this, when she'd be walking hand-in-hand with Puck, with their hearts as full as their bellies, toward the apartment building she called home.

And she wondered if she might even get used to this - not fighting, not hurting; simply being together in the moment, whatever the next hour, week, year, century might bring.

In the elevator, he pulled her to him and kissed her, long and slow, as if they'd been doing it all their lives and not just for the first time barely weeks earlier, trembling in her grandmother's kitchen just before he'd said goodbye. She slid her arms around his neck, while their packages and shopping bags thudded to the floor, pushed him into the wall, and herself against him, and kissed him impetuously back. She felt tension leave him, as palpable as the sigh he exhaled into her mouth when they broke apart. Neither said a word as they waited for the doors to open, then strode nonchalantly out. Her heart hammered in her ears; his body buzzed with so much energy he thought he might shatter.

"Looks like everyone's still out at dinner," she murmured as she unlocked the door to an apartment dimly lit by the lamp on the end table. She turned, finding herself once more in his arms, their faces inches apart. His expression as he looked at her - a hardness in his eyes, his lips slightly parted as if he were about to speak - was one she'd never seen before on his face, and it brought a heat to her cheeks to imagine what lay behind it.

"Stay," she whispered, walking him deeper into the apartment.

Puck swallowed, unaccustomed to the strange feelings spiking in his brain, his body, his heart. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

Sabrina laughed quietly. "No, it's probably not."

"Then yes," Puck whispered wickedly, and kissed her again, half-in and half-out of her room, as she fumbled for the switch.

With a burst of light, the room exploded into bright color, and they pulled apart, blinking as if waking from a spell. Sabrina took a deep breath, feeling suddenly scandalized at kissing in her bedroom. Puck, too, stepped away. Disoriented, he gazed at the package still under his arm as if seeing it for the first time.

"We should probably put those away," Sabrina heard her own voice say sensibly, while her brain continued to flounder. Puck dumbly handed over the toilet paper, and the picture was so oddly innocuous that Sabrina burst into laughter.

"What?" Puck asked, bewildered, while she guffawed, leaning against the door frame.

"Nothing - it's just . . . you're royalty and all, and the toilet paper. . . hahahahahaha!" And she was chuckling again, letting the euphoria of the moment dissipate the air that had crackled between them.

Puck watched Sabrina open and close closet doors, the homely sound of wood against wood anchoring him once more to the earth and the present, even as their echoes were a seductive reminder that they were alone, that this apartment was theirs - and dangerously so - for however long they dared.

 _We've been alone before_ , he argued with himself. _With far less on. And nothing had happened._

Then why did he feel as if he were on the edge of a cliff with his senses on fire and his blood roaring in his ears, desire like vertigo spinning him in reckless spirals?

Sabrina came back into the room and cocked her head at him, her face flushed.

He shoved his hands in his pockets, breathing in, out, in, out. It was _so_ much easier when all they did was fight, yell and take pot shots at each other's tender places. He knew where he stood then, how far to cast the bait, when to drop the sinker, the way to draw her to within seconds of a reaction, a breakdown, tears.

He also knew when to _stop_.

But this - this was freewheeling into madness with his hands tied and wings clipped. He didn't know when he'd ever felt a greater adrenaline rush, not in all the centuries he'd spent diving into canyons and rising on currents that carried him wild and carefree into the stuff of dreams. This girl - brash and beautiful, who'd fought monsters by his side and those he'd hidden within - had stolen the breath from his lips and given him so much life that until he'd met her, he hadn't even known he'd been dead. She was a drug, and he wanted more, couldn't ever get enough of her energy, her fire, the desperate ways in which she needed him but wouldn't ask, daren't hope.

He stepped toward her, the rhythm of his heart in his ears.

"Puck," she exhaled, and set her hands on his chest between them. "Why . . . are we like this?"

"Like what?" He was distracted by her mouth forming words he had absolutely no interest in. He shoved his hands deeper in his pockets.

"This - insane, mad, drunk."

"I'm perfectly sober," he retorted, "unless the juice was spiked. Was it?"

"You _know_ what I'm talking about."

In his pockets, his fingers clenched. "You'd prefer to _fight_?"

She hesitated, and he knew that she'd had that exact conversation with herself.

"I don't know how to be . . . like this," she admitted at last. "I don't know if I . . . if I love you. . . yet."

He blinked. They'd never said it before, not seriously, not once in all the years they'd spent living in the aftermath of their encounter with their future selves, when they'd discovered what they'd become. He watched her eyes shift and he tried to read her face: _afraid_? _Confused?_ Maybe a little of both. _Obstinate?_ Completely. As if, regardless of whatever else she felt, she wasn't backing down.

 _That's my girl._

So he forced his feet to remain in place as he asked, "But do you _want_ to - to love me?"

He found it interesting - and terrifying - that he hadn't even stumbled over the word. It was almost as if he'd been rolling it around in his brain, secretly wanting to say it, craving even more her reaction to it. Or maybe he'd been alive too long, seen too many weightless counterfeits that it'd been a relief to recognize its gravity in his own soul. In any case, immortality had a way of taking the fun out of even the most kitschy of human conditions; he'd learned long ago that in matters of the heart, he'd always be on the losing side.

"Yes," Sabrina answered without hesitation, remembering the dragons and the moment she thought he would die. "I do."

"Then I'll wait." He returned, looking her straight in the eye, feeling a strange settling in the middle of his chest. _Sounds like Grimm's done playing games, too. And I have all the time in the world to get this right._

"What about you?" She asked quietly, "do you. . . know . . . if. . .?"

He smiled a sly smile, desperately trying to salvage a reputation already in shambles. "I think I'll hold on to that tasty bit of information for now."

"Oh." She swallowed, looking away.

"Although -" he held out a hand to her and rolled his eyes, "- any fool could guess."

Sabrina's own gaze lifted with new intensity, as she linked her fingers with his and pulled him further into her room.

* * *

After she'd fallen asleep, Puck held Sabrina, alone once more with his thoughts and the sound of her breathing. Under the blanket, he felt her leg shift, the fabric of her jeans brushing his with a sibilant rustle. The day had been one wild ride from his first step into Sabrina's school to their last kiss on her eiderdown, and he was euphoric and exhausted.

He was also troubled.

Spending a day with Sabrina - doing normal things, eating normal food, lying next to her in a normal apartment - was weird. And watching her get and send text after text on her phone from a hundred friends (he'd lost count after five, and had just conveniently rounded it up) and hearing her read aloud her comments about _Chem prac._ and _track team_ and _hanging out after training_ and _catching you tomorrow at the bagel place_ \- was _really_ weird.

Then in her room, her phone had rung twice, and she'd answered, mid-makeout, while he'd listened with addled brain to her side of the conversation: " . . . you _did_? How . . .? They . . . what? No way! And they just _gave_ it to you? Well . . . yeah, me, too. . . yeah . . . uh-huh. . . I know, right? Best gift ever. Anyway, you totally saved me, Ben. I owe you huge. See you Monday!"

 _Best gift ever? Saved her_?

She'd laughed it off when he'd asked her about it. A friend had gotten his hands on a copy of some research she'd needed for an assignment but which she hadn't been able to find, she'd said. Then she'd hopped off the bed and spent the next five million minutes - even though it was really more like three - on her laptop, devouring a wall of text on the screen like it was . . . well, Puck hadn't been able to come up with a good comparison, he was so despondent.

 _Saved_ her?

Kicked in the gut - that was what he'd felt like. He hadn't even been able to cough up a snide remark about keeping royalty waiting and choosing filthy schoolwork over the perfection of his face and the brilliance of his esteemed company. All he'd managed was to sit up and uselessly watch her engage in something he had absolutely no clue about - she might as well have been speaking in tongues.

And the whole day had been _exactly_ like that - Sabrina in her element, showing him around a city she adored, tuning him out for other people who obviously meant a lot to her, calling things "mine" and "favorite" and "can't live without it". She'd been so comfortable, so _content -_ while he'd felt as if he were with a complete stranger, someone he used to know, who wore a face he used to love. He wasn't sure if it were just the claustrophobia of New York City in all its mania, or if it were Mortaldom in general, but his soul ached with an acute disconnect, as if all this time, he'd merely been playing make-believe in an alternate universe.

Or maybe he'd been sucked into a storybook (not that he'd read any, he clarified with himself) - one of those foreign fairytale worlds that the Marshmallow couldn't get enough of.

Or _out_ of one.

 _Saved her_?

Worst of all, his mind kept returning to that idea that someone else had saved Sabrina in a way he couldn't. He might not have understood what exactly had transpired in that phone call, but there was no doubt about what he saw on her face as she'd said it: happiness, thankfulness, relief.

It was enough; she'd never looked that way whenever _he'd_ saved her. Or _tried_ to save her.

Puck slid his hand into his pocket and fingered the dragon tooth he'd been carrying around all day. It'd been trapped in his wind-tousled hair after they'd finished off the dragon family on that disastrous camping trip. He remembered laughing when it clonked to the floor of the shower as the water untangled the snarls and washed out the detritus and caked blood - he must've been in much worse shape after the battle than he'd thought for something so big and obvious to have stayed hidden about his person without either he or Sabrina noticing it. That, or he'd been long overdue for a haircut. Probably the latter.

He'd kept it as a trophy - or perhaps a keepsake to remember a time he'd spent with Sabrina doing something they both loved. During court meetings, he'd taken it out and absently polished it on his sleeve as he'd listened to laws and petitions and treaties turn his brain to mush. When enough time had passed to make him aware of her absence, to make him consider that he might actually be missing her, he'd decided to give _her_ the tooth. It'd been her kill, after all - both dragons were - and she deserved a prize for her courage, if not also her uncanny ability to cheat death twice in a row. He'd never been one for flowers or sonnets or saccharine promises; romantic gestures of the sort always made him gag just to think about. Fortunately - or so he'd surmised - Sabrina didn't care for them either; no, a dragon tooth would've been right up her alley instead. It was so _her_ , so _him_ , so _them_.

So he'd brought it with him, planning to just toss it at her when they met, passionately entwined in the hallways of her school while her compadres fell prostrate in adoration around them. But that plan had gone to the dogs, so he'd waited for a better moment - perhaps while they were on the roof, or on their date, or in her room.

But, to his consternation, each time he'd dug his hand into his pocket, Sabrina was obsessing about something else, and he'd second-guessed himself. _Oh, hey, Grimm, so what if you didn't make the tryouts? How many of your lame mortal teammates could take on a dragon? Check out the size of this chomper!_

Or _So you didn't get picked for the scholarship interview - who needs more studying, anyway, when you can fight dragons? Speaking of which, look who went souvenir hunting!_

Or _Who cares if they got a C in any class? You don't need some stupid grade to know how awesome you are at keeping your family safe. Dragon tooth - catch!_

Or _Why d'you need to hang with those losers when you could be with me, taking down monsters, riding the wind, making magic, collecting trophies? Here - you earned this._

 _And I'd fight by your side any day._

He sighed as he finally pulled the tooth out of his pocket and quietly set it on the bedside table. From her open window, the wind teased the curtains into a dance, and called to him.

 _You don't need me to save you anymore,_ he realized as he rested his cheek against her hair, memorizing its scent, the feel of it against his skin. _You know your way around in your world, and I don't think I belong in it._

So he carefully slid out from between her sheets, ghosting a kiss across her temple and, once more - even though she hadn't asked him this time - he was gone before sunrise.

* * *

 **A/N: This. Feels like I've been waiting forever to share this chapter with you. I'm a bit proud of it, because it's cruel. And also because I wanted to write about how two people can be awful at communicating just by not communicating, that even when P+S are not yelling or fighting, they're hurting each other. And love can be so dangerous - it lays our heart raw so that we misread things, for the simple reason that we've raised the stakes so high. Don't give up on P and S, though. We're barely a third way through the story!**

 **Responding to guest reviews:**

 **Ravenmoon33: Sorry! Hopefully the frequent updates make the cliffhangers less frustrating? I totally commiserate, though, which is why I don't post even the first chapter of any story until the whole thing has been written. Then I don't keep you guys waiting too long (and I feel better about leaving you hanging). Hope this chapter was worth the wait. Or maybe it ended on another cliffy?**

 **Guest (11/29): Thank you for your kind words! Yes, P and S can't go on being annoying to each other forever. Nobody has that kind of patience in reality, do they?**

 **~QaS**


	9. Chapter Eight

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

Sabrina would never forget the day her parents left.

She'd been nine then, but overnight she'd had to be fourteen, sixteen, eighteen - whatever it took to protect a little sister barely old enough to cross the street, let alone fend for herself on one. Engulfed by a swarm of adults - police, detectives, social workers, medical professionals - they'd been prodded, poked, patronized and asked question after question after question: _WhereWhoWhatWhenHow?_

No one could actually help, but they were all she and Daphne had, so they'd put on their bravest faces and answered, over and over, the same words, day in and day out.

When those days turned into weeks, they'd been sent to live with strangers and told to keep pretending - to be good, to be loyal, to be part of a family again. She'd learned to be strong, resourceful, vigilant. She'd never been more terrified in her life, but she'd turned her fear into anger, because fear was weak but anger kept her from being hurt, kept Daphne alive.

Eventually, the police had given up the search. A cold case, they'd called it; no usable leads. They'd stopped interviewing witnesses. They'd stopped asking questions.

But Sabrina never did. It became her crusade, foisted upon anyone with even the slightest sympathy for her cause. She made her sister believe in it, and shouted it from the rafters: _I will find you._

Years later, after her parents had indeed been found and they were a family again, those questions were finally answered and put to rest.

But every now and then, she would remember the thunder, huddling in their empty bed with Daphne, how happy life had been before that day, how cruel that happiness had seemed after: _useless, pointless; tricked ya!_

And, like a sinister soundtrack to a tortured past, the voice of a young child would whisper to her _Where? What? When?_

 _Why?_

* * *

Four weeks passed before she heard his voice again.

During the first week, Sabrina lost count of how often she'd dialed his number and hung up before it'd even rung on his side. She'd woken the morning after and found the tooth, and Puck gone. Her first reaction had been relief that she'd been spared an awkward conversation with her parents should they have discovered he'd spent the night in her room. Even if nothing really scandalous had happened - they'd both been oddly circumspect about clothes and boundaries - Henry and Veronica were nonetheless strict about Propriety and Common Sense and such. And after the Dragon Incident when Henry had found them ostensibly playing Adam and Eve in the woods, she'd rather not have given them a reason to broach anything of the sort now. Or ever.

But without a note or a text, or any explanation whatsoever for Puck's disappearance, her assumptions ran wild. As for her emotions - everything from wrath to guilt and hurt - they wreaked havoc on her state of mind, not to mention her interactions with her family. Everyone played the your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine game, adding fuel to the fire of foregone conclusions and ungrounded prejudices against the male species, Everafters in general and Faeriekind in particular. The fact that Puck didn't call the next day and, weeks later still remained incognito, annoyed her to madness, and she'd sworn she'd never have anything to do with him for all eternity. Which, in their case, would not have been merely figurative.

 _Hell hath no fury._

But even she knew that anger - righteous or otherwise - could only shield her for so long, and she eventually resigned herself to the idea that he'd left because he'd grown tired of her. Which made her wonder if he'd been stringing her along from the start. Which convinced her that she was an appalling judge of character. Which resurrected her old specters of self-doubt. Which sent her into a spiral of despondency. And in her vicious cycle of self-loathing, she never once guessed that _he'd_ also stood at the threshold and quaked, that _he'd_ been the first to hate himself for not being more for her.

And then there was the tooth - what it was and, more importantly, what it meant. She finally decided that even if it had been bought off Amazon, it was still the first gift Puck had ever left her that wasn't prank supplies - a fact that was somehow both satisfying and utterly baffling.

Assuming it _was_ Puck who'd left it.

Sabrina rolled her eyes. _Who else?_

Too big to hang around her neck under her clothes (not that lockets were even her thing), and too bizarre to adorn her backpack (not that she were into trinkets and conversation pieces), she set it on her dresser. The thought that her family might see it and not bat an eyelid cheered her up immensely; the truth about her life might be too weird for anyone else to deal with, but the most important people - the ones that truly mattered - were totally in it with her. She resolved right then to pull herself together; at seventeen, she might not have been immune to the insecurities of adolescence, but she was still the same resourceful, iron-willed fighter who'd kept her little sister safe while they'd bounced between foster homes and won a war of men and monsters. She, more than most people she'd met, knew how to keep going, to find purpose in tragedy, perspective in despair.

Not that being dumped by a fairy counted as despair, and certainly not tragedy - not even close. He might have been her first, but he was still just a boy, one in a sea of millions who would come and go. _Blank indifference_ , she told herself. _That's how it's done_.

But then he called, and even that crumbled.

She'd just finished a session of aikido and was taking off her _gi_ when she heard the phone ring. The other students were packing up, their conversations flowing around her in a wave of white noise as she'd dug the phone out of her bag and slammed it to her ear without even checking the screen. She was thankful that her sensei had already left the dojo; he was particular about phones going off, even after training.

"Hey."

At the sound of his voice, her insides churned with a reaction so visceral she had to shut her eyes to hold herself together. _How_ , with just that one word, had he triggered an avalanche of emotions that for weeks she'd managed to keep tamped down?

"Hey," she returned, keeping her voice carefully neutral.

"So, whatcha doin'?"

"What do you want?"

"Whoa! Just checkin' in to see how you are. No need to bite my head off."

Her temper rose, and she bit it back.

"I'm good," she lied. The funny thing was, up till that moment, it hadn't been a lie.

"Sounds like a market back there. You hanging out with your friends?"

Something about the way he asked it made her think of the interrogations she'd watched Charming conduct on enemy soldiers during the war.

"No."

"Well, what's with the racket?"

"Just done with aikido."

Puck seemed completely oblivious of her terseness. "Aikido? Like self-defense aikido? Wavy hands and sweep your feet from under ya, no-attacking aikido?"

"That's a common misconception, but yeah." She zipped up her duffle and slung it across her body.

"Since when did you need all that? You're a perfectly good fighter when you're on the offense. And I don't see how aikido can help you fight dragons."

"It's not about fighting. It's . . . what's this really about, Puck?"

"Nothing! Haven't heard from you in a while, that's all, so thought I'd just make sure you weren't dead. You know, like how _you_ called _me_ last time for the same reason."

"Thanks for waiting this long. You must have more faith in my ability to stay alive than I thought."

"Whoa! Chill, Grimm. I was just . . ." he sighed, then Sabrina heard him muttering under his breath.

Sounding persecuted, he admitted, "I . . . I miss you, okay?"

Her heart twisted, but she wasn't ready to play nice quite yet.

"Then you shouldn't have left." She enunciated each word so he wouldn't miss the bite in them.

There was a silence on the other end, then a long exhale. "I thought we agreed to stay apart. Also, to not be mushy."

Sabrina stopped walking right in the middle of the street, and cars honked suddenly around her. She hurriedly moved toward the bus stop by the side of the road, so overcome with rage that it was some moments later before she could speak.

" _Not mushy_? What would you call making out for _hours_? What would you call falling asleep together and waking up with no sign of you? With no clue about why you weren't there? What was I supposed to think?"

"No sign? I left you a gift!"

"The tooth? Yeah, I found it. Thanks."

Puck winced at the sarcasm dripping from Sabrina's words.

"I thought you were okay with being apart," he repeated stupidly.

Sabrina ran her fingers through her hair. "What," she asked in frustration, "do you _think_ a girl is okay with when she makes out with you?"

"Uh, are we talking general females here, or . . .?"

Sabrina groaned at Puck's cluelessness. It would've been funny, she conceded, if it hadn't hurt so much. She forced down her natural instinct to be snarky and sideways, and chose honesty; its edge was sharper, its cut deeper.

"I wanted you to be there when I woke up," she said through clenched teeth, and felt tears threaten to break her composure. "I wanted you to stay."

Puck was silent. Then, just as she thought he was going to level something dismissive at her, he said seriously, "I didn't think you did."

Sabrina blinked her eyes savagely as she watched the bus approach, and stepped away from the curb so it would drive by. She didn't feel like getting on and having an audience watch her heart get mangled. She began walking in the direction of home.

"Why would you think that?" She hissed out.

It was his turn now to choose: hide behind his facetiousness, or tell her the truth and likely be mocked. Henry's words came back to him: _find the translation_. He took a deep breath.

"You were . . . I thought you were happy without me." He swallowed. "You seemed happy . . . with your friends, in your school, doing your thing."

"What?" She sounded incredulous. "I spent the day with _you_ , showing _you_ around town and . . . and . . . stuff. I was happy with _you_! Didn't you get it? Do you mean you were miserable the whole time?"

"No! It was the best day of my life!" _And the worst._

"Then. . . what? Why can't I ever understand you? Why can't we just be -"

"Normal?"

"Yeah! No." She sighed. "Damn, Puck. I thought I was falling in love with you that day."

"I already did, way before that." His answer was barely above a whisper.

Sabrina closed her eyes, as much to shut out the madness as to savor the sudden thrill at his words.

"Then," she asked sadly, " _why_ are we fighting?"

"Because it's what we do," he said just as miserably. _And it seems I broke you, even though I'd stayed away so I wouldn't._

She walked without speaking, listening to the silence that was just as loud on his end.

"What should we do now?" Puck at last asked. He wanted to barf at what this was doing to him, to his reputation as the tough-as-nails Trickster King. Before this idiot girl came along, he was the most resilient person in the universe, was _never_ at a loss, could fix _anything_.

"Stay apart." He heard her say. "You were right. We can't be together. It doesn't work."

 _But it could,_ he protested within himself. _We could try. And try. And try. No matter how long it took. I'd never give up on you._

He opened his mouth to let the thoughts out, even as they ricocheted off the walls of his mind. Instead, he found himself saying, "Yeah. Okay. I guess I'll see you around."

Her voice didn't even catch as she said goodbye and let the line go dead.

It was only fair after all, he decided as the sound pulled him under like a millstone around his heart, that this time, it was _his_ turn to break.

* * *

Sabrina Grimm knew all about moving on. Parental abandonment, sadistic foster families, even when she was finally redeemed by her estranged grandmother and given the life changing - albeit absurd - news that she was the heir to a family legacy of magic and immortality, she moved on. When she discovered, quite by accident (and some of that impulsive bumbling that seemed to be her calling card), that she and Puck were married in the future, she returned home in shock, repressed the information and any emotional reaction to it, and moved on.

That is not to say that she did it _well_ \- quite to the contrary in some of those instances - but she did pick herself (and Daphne) up and, with as much resourcefulness as she could muster given the circumstances, made some kind of rudimentary plan, set her face to fixing her problems, and left all of the mess in her wake. She didn't care much for catharsis; she much preferred to simply . . . well, move on. Carpe diem, she'd say to herself, while the world watched her unravel.

When she was down to her last fraying thread, her family - and Puck - was usually there to put her back together again. Not all movers-on were this fortunate; Sabrina was simply luckier than most. That, and she was hard to kill.

This time, though, she struggled. Family ties were one thing, but friendship - even one as volatile and tenuous as what she shared with the fairy boy - was quite a bit more complicated to weave in and out of the tapestry that was her life. He was not there in the beginning of her story, as her parents and sister were; he invited himself into the picture when she'd already mapped out her paths and patterns, and he challenged her safe notions of goodness and virtue and loyalty and love, then somehow - no doubt by nefarious subterfuge - imprinted himself all over her world, too annoying to ignore, but too comfortable to be without, until she'd gotten used to having him there.

Until, when he'd uprooted himself forever from it, she could no longer recognize what was left, because she could only see the places where he was missing.

She was horrified that she'd be _that_ bereft of a backbone - or so she thought - and it exacerbated her loss, for now she not only missed _him_ , but also the person _she_ was before he became part of her. So she was hard on herself on both counts, and resolved with even more determination to move on, in spite of not knowing how, or where, or why.

"I shouldn't have even kissed him," she thought with regret, "let alone given my heart to him in that one, careless, impulsive, stupid moment. He's otherworldly. Not normal. Not like me. I bet he's moved on already - probably romancing some fairy girl in his kingdom or worse -" and her insides twisted at the image, "- fighting alongside someone else who has his back better than I ever could."

She was wrong, of course, about everything, but especially about giving her heart to him. It _hadn't_ been impulsive, or careless. But it was easier to believe than the remote possibility that he - _they_ \- might be worth fighting for.

* * *

That morning, like every other weekday morning, Henry watched his older daughter leave the house for school. She was quiet, but the quietness unsettled him. Unlike her younger sister, whose life force exploded into the world around her with the brightness of a supernova, Sabrina had always kept her energy deep inside her; in the last week, however, she'd positively collapsed into herself. Something had changed, he decided, for her to be this disengaged. It pained him, and he resolved to get to the bottom of it.

It hadn't gone unnoticed by Veronica, either, and she'd confessed to her husband, "If Puck had still been around, I'd have sworn it was something to do with him. But we haven't seen him since after the Park Side incident. And Sabrina's been great since he left. So I'm not sure what it is. Maybe something at school . . .?"

Which goes to show how little parents really know of what goes on in the lives of teenagers.

While his daughter's enigmatic moods might not have carried the same urgency as locating a missing child or exposing a traitor in a war camp, they were still a mystery and, as he always did whenever there was a mystery afoot, Henry shifted automatically into detective mode. He sifted through his memories of recent events - things he'd seen, conversations he'd had, snippets of information he'd picked up from just listening and observing - and tried to pull the clues together.

A sudden, horrible idea began to coalesce. And, as he stared at Veronica, whose eyes had widened a split second later, he suspected the same possibility had occurred to her too.

"They wouldn't be _that_ stupid, would they?" He asked rhetorically.

They flipped a coin to see who got to do the honors. Henry lost.

* * *

Later that night, as Sabrina finished up the dishes, Henry came up behind her.

"Hey," he began.

"Hey, Dad," she replied, draping the dishcloth over the handlebar of the oven.

He waited till she turned around to face him, then smiled at her. His heart swelled at the sight - no longer the tiny toddler on his shoulders battling a cold, her nose freely running, her snotty fingers grasping his hair. He and Veronica had laughed about it after, when he'd washed the slime off his head in distaste and - at last - conceded the humor in it.

"What's going on, honey?" He asked gently.

"Nothing," she said airily - _too airily_ , he thought. She tried for a grin, but it fell flat.

"You seem . . . quieter. Anything wrong?" He prompted.

Her lower lip disappeared between her teeth. She inhaled, and held the breath.

Henry could almost hear the words tumbling out of her mouth. _I'm pregnant, Dad. I'm sorry._

He braced himself, and internally reviewed his action plan - comfort her first (she must surely be terrified), then grill her on the details - how far along, who knew, what plans they had, and - he repressed a shudder - the typical gestation period for a Fae-human fetus, etc. etc.

Assuming it _was_ half-Fae.

(Whose else could it be?)

"It's Puck." Sabrina said at last.

 _I knew it_ , Henry thought. _The next time he shows his face aro-"_

"He left - again."

 _Filthy piece of - !_

"We both agreed it was for the best."

 _Whoa. We raised to be independent, young lady, but this is not what we meant!_

"I just thought, you know, that it would get better as we got older. But we're just fighting so much. Even when we're not together."

 _Wait - what?_

"We're not . . . I don't know how this whole future vision thing works, but we can't see how we'll ever get together without killing each other. So we're not."

 _"_ You're not . . . what?" Henry stammered.

Sabrina gave her father a strange look. "We're not together anymore, Dad. Maybe we never even really were. Puck's gonna to stay on in Faerie for. . . forever, I guess, and I'm gonna go on with my life."

She sighed when Henry continued to stare at her. "We . . . _broke up_ , Dad. Did you and Mom even know we were sort-of together? For, like, a week?"

"You. Broke. Up." Henry repeated weakly. "That's _all_?"

"Sorry to disappoint." Sabrina bit out in disbelief, looking slightly hurt.

"No, honey, it's not . . . " Henry faltered in his relief, seeing his Nightmare Scenario blissfully disintegrate in his mind. He pulled himself together and remembered to look appropriately sympathetic. "I'm sorry. I didn't know. Are you okay?"

"Getting there," Sabrina replied, still frowning at her father. "Are _you_ okay, Dad?"

Henry was struck by an absurd desire to guffaw. But he carefully schooled his features into concern, and assured his daughter he was fine; he'd just been so worried about her that he was glad it wasn't something worse.

He'd let it slip out before he could censor it, and groaned. _Veronica should be the one doing this_ , he grumbled to himself.

"Worse?" Sabrina's eyebrows shot up. "How worse? Like murdering someone, you mean?"

"Um," Henry hesitated. "Yeah. Something like that."

"I've killed people in the war," Sabrina reasoned. "I'll probably have a complex all my life and have to have tons of therapy. So yeah, I guess a breakup _is_ probably not worse than taking a life. Or getting pregnant before I graduate, right?"

Henry colored.

Sabrina's eyes widened, and her mouth fell open.

"Wait. No -! You can't be serious. You and Mom _actually_ thought -"

Henry cleared his throat. "Not - no . . . we -"

"You were afraid I was _pregnant_?"

Henry held up his hands in defense. This was going _so_ badly.

"With _Puck's_ child?"

Henry didn't trust himself to speak. "Well. . ."

"Dad! What kind of idiots do you take us for?" She looked more insulted than embarrassed.

 _The kind of idiots that were clearly attracted to each other and didn't know the first about how to show it,_ Henry reasoned within himself. _It's not uncommon; people make mistakes all the time. But I should've known better. I should've trusted my first instincts about you - and that boy. It seems_ I'm _the idiot here, not you._

He sighed and gave her a sheepish smile.

"Sorry, sweetheart. I . . . " _When you become a parent yourself, you'll get it._ "You're right. _I'm_ the idiot. Can we start over?"

Sabrina shook her head at her father, still frowning, and then - quite suddenly - grinned, and he realized that she was still that little girl riding out her misery on his shoulders, clinging on for dear life. And like that father from so many years ago, he'd do anything to make his little girl feel better.

"Hey," he began again, his smile now crooked, "you look a little down, honey. Want someone to talk to?"

* * *

 **A/N: Thus ends Part I!** **Thank you for all your reviews and PMs and follows, friends! I am always thrilled to receive them and I do my best to respond and start conversations with whomever wants to dissect P+S with me. The wonderful thing about the book series (I feel) is how young the characters are, and even though we're given a peek into how their adult lives turn out at the end, there are all these blank years in between during which to draw our own character maps to take them from twelve to twenty-whatever age they were in the last epilogue.**

 **I've corresponded with a few readers about Sabrina's character being not quite what we envisioned (translation: Get Your Act Together Already, Sabrina!), especially next to Puck's, which is more fully-realized in his transitions from secret caretaker in Ferryport to his destiny as King of Faerie. And I couldn't agree more - Sabrina has a loooooong way to go before she looks anything like the hero she truly is. I won't say I _deliberately_ wrote her thus far as an insecure girl-next-door with boy problems, because I wasn't actually writing her as any particular type. Part I is about her being in her own world - "Mortaldom" - and trying to regain what was taken from her as when she left it for foster homes and Ferryport Landing as a child. Puck is negotiating his own world and hers, and it has not been a walk in the park for him any more than it is for Sabrina to have him in it. They've decided (more because they're at a stalemate than a real resolution) that they're better off staying on their own sides of the fence. It's the classic Barrier Phenomenon, only this time there is no actual magical boundary keeping them apart. Do we try or do we give up - that is the question they have to ask each other in order to move through it; as long as even one of them chooses no, the barrier wins.**

 **And here is where we leave them as a couple, and embark on Sabrina's journey to find herself. I can't wait to get the next chapters out for you guys to read - you've been fantastic supporters so far! There will be lots of P and S, and P-and-S, but maybe not in the way you were expecting. Because while it's about being seventeen (whatever that looks like in their worlds) and growing up and falling in love, this is also a tale of dragons. And those dragons are about to make their entrance.**

 **Catch you soon!**

 **~QaS**


	10. Chapter Nine

#~#

 **~.PART II.~**

 **your world/my world**

 **never the twain shall meet**

#~#

* * *

 **CHAPTER NINE**

Two weeks later, the dragons returned.

Relda and Canis saw them first, winging their way over Ferryport Landing toward the city. The old lady frowned - not only were dragons unheard of outside the Everafter Realm, let alone near their little community, but there were far too many of them to be an isolated wandering from the clan. This, Relda thought with foreboding, seemed like a deliberate migration. Canis scanned the skies each day, counting and tracking their flight routes.

"Groups of three or four," he told Relda in his quiet voice. "Random times of the day or night, but always from the west, always heading east, northeast."

"Where are they coming from?" She wondered, worried. "And why the city? There's nothing magical there - only skyscrapers and humans. Mortals. Surely they're not hunting?"

"Dragons seldom hunt in packs," Canis noted. "They're solitary predators. There must be another reason. A mission, perhaps."

"But so _many_ ," Relda insisted, deeply troubled. "I must call Henry."

"Do that," Canis agreed.

* * *

"Dragons _again_?" Veronica's was the first response to the news when Henry had relayed his mother's message.

"That's what she said," Henry replied, brow wrinkled in thought.

Daphne cleared her throat. "It's not one of Puck's crazy pranks, is it?"

Everyone turned to Sabrina, whose expression darkened.

"How would I know?" She muttered. "I haven't talked to him in weeks!"

Nobody argued with that. They'd all noticed it, and no one had wanted to ask about it.

"What's more important," Sabrina continued, ignoring the silence that stretched two seconds too long, "is what's going to happen with the mortals - if the dragons do turn up in our neck of the woods, people can see them, right? There'll be mass hysteria and the media going nuts like it's the end of the world!"

"Yes," Veronica agreed, "and I don't think we have enough forgetful dust for the whole world."

"We wouldn't need as much if the dragons kill everyone first," Basil pointed out with a bit too much relish.

"And what about school?" Daphne added. "Do I still have to go to school if there are dragons flying about?"

"There's that, too," her mother admitted, frowning.

"Time to call in more favors," Henry decided.

Veronica phoned their children's schools to (somewhat) truthfully inform them that the respective Grimm children were being kept home for a day or two due to a "family emergency". For a second, she'd considered adding, "and you might want to do the same with your own kids because by 'family', I really meant 'national'." But she decided that there was no point introducing more hoopla than necessary, at least not until the city was well and truly overrun (or overflown) with the deadly beasts. Besides, there was a chance that people would write it off as some movie stunt anyway and focus on more important things like Wall Street indices and breakdowns on the Subway lines. This was New York City, after all.

Henry texted all their trusted Everafter friends in the city, including the intrepid Chief of Police, to convey the chilling news. They at least, seemed to appreciate the magnitude - literally - of the situation. And it was to their credit that, after the first initial exclamations of shock and anxiety, the expletives died away and they pulled themselves together, demonstrating a purposeful calm that lanced the first sliver of hope through Henry's smoggy spirits.

Even then, it wasn't enough; not by a long shot. They'd have to enlist the help of the gods.

Well, _one_ god in particular.

* * *

Mordred LeFay had been decimating enemies in his stylish Glasgow loft when he received the call.

"What's the fairy done now?" He said in lieu of his usual " _Mordred LeFay, CEO, OMNIPOTENT Pte. Ltd.; Hacks, Cracks and Sneak Attacks. Who Can I Eliminate For You?"_

Almost lazily, he swerved to avoid a fleet of pterodactyls on his floor-to-ceiling wall screen. He was fifty points away from the all-time highest score on Dragons & Detonators in two centuries, and he didn't appreciate the interruption.

"Believe it or not, it isn't Puck this time," Veronica informed him. "We've got an incursion. Right now it's still within the Realm, but they're dangerously close to our world, and a few've already slipped out and been spotted. Can you do something?"

"Incursion," Mordred repeated indifferently, and blew up an ice palace. "Are we talking locusts, nuclear missiles or . . .?"

"Dragons."

His eyes lit up as he lanced a manticore with liquid hellfire, then hit the pause button. His pulse hadn't even registered a spike.

"Sweet," Mordred said.

* * *

Basil, resident (budding) engineer, was beyond thrilled. His older sister, whom he adored and idolized, had given him A Task.

His Task, Sabrina had said, was to monitor everything he could concerning the dragons and report when they were (a) about 10 miles out and/or (b) over the ocean.

Before he could even ask how, Daphne, his other older sister, whom he also adored but didn't quite idolize because she was too much like him, being even a little goofy at times, had given him a magical device called "The Seeing Eye" and told him it was what people used back when they didn't have apps for everything and had to fiddle with dials to make things to what they wanted.

Now, apps Basil understood, having about three hundred of his favorite ones on his iPad, organized in neat categories exactly the way he wanted them. Even at the tender age of nine, he was already a whiz at anything with a screen, although he was nowhere even close to _coughing_ at the dust left by the blessed feet of one Mordred LeFay, god of the virtual universe, of whom he was far too much in awe to truly adore, but whom he nonetheless idolized with every last atom of his earnest little heart.

So Basil set his mind to work on the Seeing Eye, twiddling its dials until he figured out - in all of one and a half minutes - how to configure it to track mythological creatures and set parameters on their locations and velocities and projected targets and such.

Sabrina and Daphne sat with their heads together, outlining various plans to Take Down The Dragons, none of which was actually any good, each of them secretly and separately thought. However uninspired their strategic brainstorming was, they plowed on, their moods alternately buoyed and deflated by news from Relda, or updates from Mordred.

* * *

Mordred was working overtime, and he _never_ worked overtime.

He was working overtime to hide an entire flight of dragons by turning them invisible, and he _never_ hid dragons; usually, he just blew them out of the sky with his gaming console.

And he was doing it to protect a bunch of wimpy humans who thought dragons were cute sidekicks in cartoons about Viking teenagers.

 _And_ he was doing it for free.

He rolled his eyes. What a boring day. Maybe if he _accidentally_ forgot to hide a couple of the dragons - he could say it was to "create interest" among the city folk - the frantic bigwigs might call in the Feds, or the National Guard, or some other HigherUps, and make it a _slightly_ less boring day.

Or maybe someone might turn up who could actually _fight_ dragons, and then it might even be a semi-interesting day. Like one of his games, except real. And maybe he'd be able to manipulate things behind the scenes to steer the battle one way or the other, depending on which side was doing a better job fighting for their lives and thus deserving to not be completely pulverized. Yes - a worthy opponent would definitely be _interesting_.

Like the Fae, for instance. The Fae were tricky buggers, but they were good at fighting dragons. Whenever Mordred played Dragons & Detonators, he always picked Fae avatars because - unless he was careless, which he never was - they hardly ever lost a fight with a dragon. He'd often wondered what made them practically invincible - maybe the fact that they, like the dragons, could fly. Or maybe they were just naturally aggressive in war, and filled to overflowing with magic. Not the kind of magic _he_ had, which had to be collected and which required practice and focus to wield, but magic they were born with, that _birthed_ them and coursed through their very beings and couldn't be earned, or lost.

Or maybe it was just their King - that boy with the smart mouth which stopped moving only when he had his foot in it. The boy he had to rescue just weeks earlier when he'd stupidly walked into that school because he had the hots for that Grimm girl. The boy who was a wonder on the battlefield.

The _real_ battlefield, not the virtual landscapes on which _Mordred_ was lord of the universe.

He'd watched Puck fight in the Everafter War, and envied him. Envied him for his skill, his grace, how easily he could take down a beast ten times his size. Envied his freedom, his confidence, the careless way in which he accosted the girl - Mordred would hardly call it _courting_ \- who clearly didn't mind the attention (most of the time). Envied the affection he received from her entire family in spite of his disrespect, his arrogance.

He used to think he and that boy had something in common - their love for battle, and the fact that they were growing up without fathers. But now he saw that they couldn't have been any more different - Puck was twice, thrice, ten times more real than Mordred was, and Puck had _everything_.

But now - they needed _him_ now, not that boy. They'd called on _him_ to save the city.

So Mordred grabbed the bottle of Red Bull from beside his glowing screen and took a long swig.

Overtime it was, then.

* * *

"The city is warded," Mordred reported to the Grimms via videochat, "and the shields are in place, but the dragons are closing in. I can only hold off the authorities for another couple hours, maybe, before they come into view. First view specifically to the people in the skyscrapers and the tourists on Liberty Island. I could close down Lady Liberty, but there's nothing I can do about the workers in the office buildings. I've blocked military surveillance, infiltrated aviation security to divert nearby flight routes, and hacked into all the major meteorological systems and set everything up as some kind of atmospheric anomaly."

Daphne gasped, clearly impressed. "Like forgetful dust but on a global technological scale!"

"But only until the dragons appear right in front of their eyes," Sabrina reminded her, pragmatic as ever. "Then the game's over; let the wailing and gnashing of teeth begin."

"Yes, it's only temporary." Henry agreed reluctantly. "Our plan is to _stop_ the dragons - or at least force them to detour - before they actually break through the er. . ."

"Veil? Flimsy curtain of deception?" Sabrina supplied sarcastically, earning a glare from her mother.

"Sabrina," Veronica's tone held a hint of warning, "we're doing the best we can."

"Not good enough," Sabrina stated emphatically, in a voice that usually meant she was going to do something exceptionally dangerous. This was the voice, Daphne reflected, that Puck picked up on the most easily; over the years, he'd been very successful at deflecting some of Sabrina's rasher decisions before they slid precipitously toward certain disaster.

But Puck was not here now. And no one had another plan, better or otherwise.

Mordred cleared his throat. "Ahem. So, short version: physically, your people should be safe, but mentally, it's another story. Also, what do you want me to do when the dragons do attack? You want nuclear missiles? There are nuclear bases I can activate and re-route the trajectories to New York City."

" _Nuke_ them? Are you nuts?" Henry shouted at Mordred's disembodied face. "Why not just flatten the city right now and be done with it?"

Mordred shrugged, although it was hard to see anything on the screen below his neck. "I can minimize the collateral damage to just whatever's above the 96th floor. Easy. I do it all the time on D&D."

"What's D&D?" Veronica asked.

"Dragons and Detonators! Only the coolest Everafter RPG ever!" Basil told her scornfully, eyes slightly glazed. "I love D&D!"

"What's RPG?" It was Henry's turn to get left behind.

"Role-playing game!" All three Grimm children chorused. "What century are you living in, Dad?"

Their father rolled his eyes. "I don't _do_ games. My real life is bizarre enough."

"Back to the point," Mordred interrupted again, incredulous at how easily the Grimm family could get sidetracked. "I'm getting signals from the west-, southwest: big, vague blip on my radar. I can't get any more details without sacrificing the range. Basil got anything on the Seeing Eye?"

Basil almost burst with happiness. Not only was he talking to Mordred LeFay, but Mordred LeFay was talking back, and asking for his input, and working alongside him to save the universe. _Save the universe!_ With _Mordred LeFay!_ He licked his lips and willed his voice to sound deeper, _cooler_.

"Uh, yeah - a big bunch of them coming right at us, but it looks like something smaller's coming ahead of everyone else."

"Advance party," Sabrina muttered.

"Probably," Basil confirmed. "Looks like just one dragon, actually. Vital stats show just one, anyway."

"Just one," Sabrina considered. "Maybe we can take it out, draw it away. How far?"

Basil fiddled with the dials. "Touchdown in 40 minutes. And by 'touchdown', I mean the good people of New York are gonna think the Macy's Parade came early, and not in a good way."

"40 minutes!" Daphne exclaimed, dismayed. "In this traffic, it'll take us 40 minutes just to get 5 blocks by car!"

Sabrina stood. "We're not going by car."

"What are you planning?" Veronica asked suspiciously. "I hope you're not planning to distract it like you tried to do last time. Puck was -"

"Puck was a pain in the rear," Sabrina finished with determination, "but he was right about one thing - the only way to distract a dragon is an aerial maneuver."

"But you can't fly!" Basil countered, beginning to panic.

"No, but _this_ can," Daphne told him with a grin, unrolling a beautiful Persian rug on the ground and stepping onto it with Sabrina beside her. "We're going to hunt dragons! Magic carpet, up!"

"You and what army?" Mordred inquired from his screen as the carpet rose five feet off the ground.

Daphne tapped her temple, then pointed both index fingers at their family around them. "This army right here."

"Hold on! Where will you distract them _to_?" Henry grabbed a handful of carpet to stop them flying off.

"Anywhere but here," Sabrina said. "Mordred, I need you to keep the wards and shields up, and the surveillance signals scrambled. Hold the mortal world off as long as you can. If we fail, I don't think any amount of forgetful dust will help. And cover us as we fly."

"Head west, southwest and above the clouds," Mordred replied, and they heard frantic tapping on his keyboard. "Once they break through, I can throw up visual shields. There'll be a short lag but not enough for anyone to notice. They'll just think it's a shape in the clouds. But after you've drawn them away - what then?"

Sabrina threw her hands up. "No idea. We'll just wing it from there."

Daphne giggled. "Wing it! Good one, sis. It's what Puck would do."

The smile that was beginning on Sabrina's face suddenly faded as the carpet took off through the open window and into the bright sky.

"Yeah," she said softly. "It's exactly what he'd do."

* * *

The carpet streaked toward its target, bathing the sisters in burning sunshine as its shadow undulated on the clouds below them.

"Shoulda remembered the sunscreen," Daphne muttered. "It'd be just like us to survive a dragon invasion but die of skin cancer."

Sabrina snorted. "If we live that long."

"Do we really not have a plan?" Daphne turned to her in genuine surprise. "You always have a plan!"

Sabrina shook her head. "Puck taught us to improvise. He said it was the strongest magic in the world."

Daphne looked coy. "I thought love was."

Sabrina refused to even blush. "Not now, Daph. Do you see it anywhere?"

"No. Do you?"

"Bas," Sabrina barked into her phone, which Mordred had remotely reconfigured to communicate with the Seeing Eye, "we need eyes up here. Whereabouts is this dragon?"

"You want distance or time?"

"Time."

"15 minutes, dead-on."

Sabrina nodded tensely. "What's below us?"

"Water. Also some offshore rigs. And ships, vessels, that sort of thing. But mostly just the ocean."

"Rigs. Hm." Sabrina pondered this, the wheels turning in her head, "Oil?"

"Can't tell. I don't think so. Just marine studies, I think. Y'know - scientists and environmental stuff. Wait a mo' . . . oh - abandoned! Or unoccupied, at least. That one - all by itself, 2 o'clock, can you see it?"

"Hm," Sabrina said again. She turned to Daphne. "I think I've found our plan. Do you have your wand?"

"Only the training one. It's all we had at home. All the others are in the Hall of Mirrors back at Granny's. This one doesn't cast any really powerful spells; mostly just special effects. Why?"

"Good enough. Carpet, down!"

"When you can spare the time," Daphne gulped, her sarcasm lost as the carpet plummeted through the clouds and the whistling air stole her words, "I'd like a clue!"

They leveled out over the water just in time to hear Basil counting down, "Visual in ten. . . nine. . .

Mordred's voice layered over Basil's, "Shields up on sight."

" . . . five. . . four. . . three . . . two . . . one . . . bingo!"

In the distance, the air shimmered, and a dark object burst out of the sky. It was approaching at incredible speed, but it was, as far as they could tell, alone.

"That doesn't look like a cloud shape," Daphne said in awe.

"Sure hope Mordred's blipped this from our world," Sabrina agreed, "or we're gonna have some pretty weird headlines tomorrow."

"If there _is_ a tomorrow," her sister noted.

"Daph," Sabrina pulled her sister's attention back to their task, her eyes on the quickly growing projectile, "We're going to divert him to that rig and fry his head off."

"Oh. Um. That sounds like a very risky plan. Also, how do you know it's a him and not a her?"

Sabrina peeled her eyes away from her quarry just long enough to blink at Daphne, remembering her fight with the drake and its mate alongside Puck on the mountain. "For our sakes, I'm _praying_ it's a him and not a her. Mordred, you there?"

"Yes."

"Can you access this rig right below us? When I tell you, I need you to power it up. _Full_ power. We're gonna cook this bird."

"Got it."

Sabrina took Daphne's hand. "Ready?"

"Yeah!"

"Alright, let's do this. Carpet, pursue and distract!"

For the next few minutes, Sabrina shut out all sense of reality and pretended that she was in a game. The carpet flew like a missile toward the oncoming invader and she willed her stomach to keep from emptying her lunch as she watched its reptilian features come into sight. Just before they collided with its massive snout, the carpet turned abruptly and climbed vertically, pulling the dragon's gaze upward.

It glanced back, as if the carpet were a mere fly in its path, and continued, undeflected.

Sabrina barked a command to the carpet, and it dove back toward the beast, while Daphne, brandishing her wand, zapped it on the side of its head.

This time, the dragon turned from its flight path and followed them. The carpet circled back around and came at the dragon from the other side, with Daphne throwing out another shot from her wand just before they zipped out of its reach. The creature roared, shook its head violently, and came at them. The carpet climbed higher, then dropped into a spiral around the dragon's head.

Disoriented, the beast snapped at the flying annoyance, and Sabrina took the carpet down toward the rig, drawing the dragon along with them.

She flew them in close to the platform, weaving in and out between the steel towers, her eyes taking in the electrical cables draped around and between them. The dragon flew behind them, neck stretched, jaws opening in the unmistakeable preparation for expelling fire. She directed the carpet away, avoiding the flames that suddenly flared behind them. Once, then twice more, they looped in and out of the sky and around the platform, getting the dragon accustomed to freely darting between the cables. For the third time, the carpet rose above the platform in a graceful arc, then plummeted, coming to rest on the steel beams that crisscrossed to support the towers. The dragon eyed them, then dove, mouth open.

At the last minute, the carpet zipped sideways, just as Sabrina yelled, "Mordred, now!"

The dragon's plume of fire met with the suddenly blaze of electric lights and buzzing cables. It blinked and shied its head, fanning its wings wide to check its momentum, but it was too late. Into the steel towers it smashed, toppling one toward the other, short-circuiting the cables that wrapped themselves around the creature in a deadly net of naked current. The more it struggled, the more entangled it got, until it was practically trapped - wings, snout, and thrashing tail.

In seconds, it was over. The great beast's heart gave out with a shudder, and the hulking body lay still, sparks and pulses of current twitching in its body post-death.

Above the smoking wreckage, Sabrina and Daphne watched somberly, their own bodies still charged with adrenaline from the chase. Sabrina put her arm around her sister.

"You okay?"

"Duh! That was badass. Puck couldn't have done it better."

Once more, Sabrina's heart pinched at the thought of the fairy boy, whose snark and crowing banter were sorely missing from the victory scene.

"Yeah," she managed, then turned the carpet toward home. From her phone came the garbled voices of Basil and their parents, asking about their safety, raving about the fight which they'd watched via satellite link (thanks, Mordred).

"Uh, girls?" Henry's voice sounded oddly restrained, "coming up behind you - another two."

"Dang." Sabrina said over her shoulder as she snuck a glance. "I'm all out of rigs."

"There are ships over there," Daphne said, pointing far out to the east.

"Occupied," Basil cautioned. "You can't crash a dragon into them. Not unless you want to kill a whole bunch of innocent people too."

"There's just the sea for miles." Sabrina admitted, losing hope. "Can dragons be drowned?"

"Or do we know any sea monsters who are on our side?" Daphne suggested optimistically. "And what happens after we kill these two? Do we drown the rest of the herd, too, then?"

" 'Flight', not 'herd'," Sabrina heard Puck's voice correcting her in her head. She wished he were there, not only because he alone would be far better at fighting dragons than she and her team combined, but also because she desperately needed his pluck and never-say-die attitude, and the way he could pull out idea after idea until he found one that worked.

What a pity they were no longer on talking terms. Or any terms.

What a pity, indeed.

Because while they might have been a trainwreck in love, they were incredible together in war. And maybe if she could keep her heart out of her head for an hour or two . . .

She set her jaw in determination and pulled out her phone.

Puck answered after just two rings.

"Puking Pete's Pizza Parlor," he intoned solemnly. "Can I interest you in an extra large gently-used recycled-topping pizza with moldy breadsticks and a 2-liter bottle of fermented barf?"

Sabrina felt better already.

"Puck," she said, "I need you here. We got dragons. Lots of 'em."

"You need me, huh?" He sounded extremely pleased.

"Yes, Stinker. Can you come?"

"Thought you'd never ask."


	11. Chapter Ten

**CHAPTER TEN**

In the fifteen minutes it took Puck to find the sisters, Sabrina and Daphne brought down two more dragons, the first using an old-fashioned but surprisingly effective snare-and-derail method that involved summoning underwater trawling nets in the bay to disable its wings mid-flight, and plunging the hapless beast into the harbor.

"You drowned it!" Daphne exclaimed, when minutes passed and the dragon did not resurface.

"Hopefully," Sabrina returned. "Mordred, can you blip that?"

"Already on it." Mordred's voice sounded almost bored. "As far as everyone's concerned, it was some meteorite falling into the bay. I've boosted the surrounding EM fields to move the bay currents so the carcass drifts way out of the expected impact zone. Crazy scientists are gonna be all over it tomorrow but they won't find zilch."

"I have no idea what you just said, but thanks," Sabrina told him.

"Shoulda thought of that earlier," Daphne pointed out. "The nets, I mean. Way more efficient than all those loop-de-loops into the electric cables."

"Well, we weren't warmed up yet," her sister defended herself. "Now we can cut our kill times by half. What's taking Puck so long? Oh no - here comes that second one. Duck!"

They did, and the beast passed overhead. Sabrina cocked an eyebrow, sudden inspiration making her smirk.

"Can your wand do fireworks?" She shouted at Daphne.

"You thinking of dazzling the dragon to death, huh?"

"No. But maybe we can blow him outta the sky. We'll make him really mad, so he'll open his mouth to spit fire at us, then we'll shoot fireworks down his gut. Hopefully, he'll blow up."

"Like a bomb. Yeah!" Daphne said. "I hafta say, sis, you got some craaaaaazy ideas for someone without an actual plan. Have you been secretly reading a dragon manual or something?"

"Unwanted field experience." Sabrina's answer was terse, but only because she didn't want to think about the dragon battle in which Puck had almost been killed by that very move. "Let's take it above the clouds so it's less visible," she refocused their attentions on the crisis at hand. "Otherwise, I don't know how Mordred's going to hide a huge dragon exploding in plain sight."

"Oh, he'll figure something; he's amazing." Daphne said, reddening slightly.

Sabrina glanced at her in surprise, opened her mouth to make a snide remark about crushes and older guys, then stopped herself. She'd once been exactly where Daphne was, and the world hadn't made it easy for her. She let it slide.

"Get ready, Daph," she said instead.

The plan went off like clockwork. Above the clouds, the dragon snapped at the flying carpet zipping in and out of its line of sight, finally rearing its head back to despatch a blazing stream. The girls easily avoided the blast of fire and then, as it pulled its body once more into Preparation Inferno Position, Daphne fired unerringly into its open maw.

The dragon lurched once before rupturing into chunks of debris as colored sparks blossomed against the sky and sizzled down through the clouds below them.

"Let's hope the locals think it's just a random fireworks display," Sabrina said.

Daphne snorted. "Yeah, right - in the middle of the day."

Sabrina didn't reply, feeling suddenly tired of the battling, the hunting, the killing. While her mind and body had been heady from the adrenaline of the fight, she hadn't been able to think of anything other than staying alive and keeping her world safe. But now, watching the hulking beast destroyed just like that - by _her_ plan, if not also her hand - she felt . . . cheap; a hollow shell of herself. Even the thought that it'd been self-defence, that it'd been the enemy, even that they'd been at _war_ , did little to assuage the guilt that gnawed at her conscience.

 _I shouldn't be taking lives_ , she thought, troubled, _and neither should Daphne_. _We're too young to be killing, too young to be feeling okay about the killing._

"Well, well, well. Fireworks to herald my arrival. And if it isn't the Trouble Twins themselves - Magic and Mayhem Grimm."

"Puck!" Daphne yelled in joy as a voice floated out of the clouds and a familiar flying boy appeared, wings beating furiously at his back. Behind him hovered three other fairies - warriors, from the look of them.

Sabrina's heart did a strange little flop at the sight of him. She'd been steeling herself for this moment, reminding herself that they were nothing more than fellow soldiers fighting a common enemy. _Expertise_ , she counseled herself, _that's what you want from him;_ _that's_ all _you want from him._

"Killed a dragon right when you turned up," she declared, keeping her voice even. "You sure took your time."

"Yes, I saw that!" Puck said approvingly. "Pizzazz and all. Not too shabby."

"And we were celebrating!" Daphne explained with glee, clapping her hands and completely oblivious to the tension between the two teens.

"So," Puck looked around him, assessing the scene, "you and dragons - again. What's with that?"

His eyes locked on Sabrina's and she read a million other questions in his gaze. And she had even more of her own, as she stared back and wondered, for the first time, if the past few weeks had been a mistake, if they'd merely had been two fools punishing themselves and each other because they couldn't believe they deserved better.

Suddenly, she felt as if the fog had cleared and left in its wake a stunning truth: she needed him, and he'd come, no questions asked. It was as if someone had lit a fire in her belly - and if they hadn't been in the middle of yet another stupid battle . . .

Later, then; personal issues would have to take a backseat to not getting their heads singed off.

"Wish I knew," she replied instead. "And these aren't all. There are a lot more of 'em, all heading this way."

"Any idea why?"

"Nope. They're coming from all over the place, too. Congregating here."

"From _all over_?"

"Mostly from the west, but yeah. Didn't you see them on your magical radar or whatever you use in Faerie?" Daphne asked, incredulous that no one in Puck's Everafter realm had noticed something as obvious as an entire flight of dragons zoning in on them.

Puck snorted. "Magical radar? We don't even have reliable internet! _We_ , Marshmallow, are very old-school - _we_ look out the window, just like we did centuries ago."

Sabrina ignored his sarcasm. "Well, they've been heading here for hours now. Basil and Mordred have been tracking them and keeping them hidden from the mortals. But they're gonna see them sooner or later."

Puck frowned. "That's not like dragons to congregate. Unless someone's summoned them. Or . . . sent them. Uh . . ."

"You know something! What?"

"With our luck, they're heading for Faerie. Curse him! Well, this won't be the first mess he's left me to clean up."

"Who?" Sabrina and Daphne chorused.

"My father, duh. I'm willing to bet my smelliest socks that it's one of his old playmates. And by 'playmate', I mean 'let's hold a friendly competition to see who can annihilate each other's kingdom first'. Other princes inherit untold riches when their old man kicks the bucket but I get a truckload full of all the people he's ticked off in his lifetime. Which, as you know, is a really long time to collect enemies. Well, first things first: you girls turn around and go home. And _stay_ home. And don't even _think_ of sneaking out after me. And - wait, did you say Mordred's here?"

Before either of the girls could protest, Mordred's voice sounded from Sabrina's phone in a tinny sigh, "At your service."

Puck looked around in bewilderment before he located the source of the voice. "Oh! Hey, Gamemaster! Listen, here's the deal: if the dragons keep on course, the city's screwed. Can you divert them right now into Faerie before they get any closer?"

Daphne blinked and cut in. "Divert them? How?"

Puck barely glanced at her. "Long story, Marshmallow; another day, perhaps. Short version: Faerie is in a different dimension. If we can open a trod in the sky, we can get them out of this mortal one and into Faerie. Not good news for us, but at least your world's spared a heckuva bad day. So, Gamemaster," he addressed the screen again, "think you're up for that?"

Mordred nodded. "I can set up a gateway so that only Everafters get sucked into Faerie - a kind of . . . filter in the airspace."

"Yeah, good, good," Puck said, nodding. "Don't want any stray 747s turning up on my front step whining about being abducted by aliens or the Bermuda Triangle or whatever. "

Mordred's lip curled ever so slightly. "That would've been my Uncle Alastair. What an embarrassment to the family. He was a total novice; by the time we found out what he was doing, it'd been _years_ , and who knew how many vessels the human world had lost? Doddering fool."

Daphne gaped at him. "The Bermuda Triangle was an _Everafter_ thing?"

"Botched trod. Happens all the time, but my Uncle Alastair's was a doozy because he was so phenomenally incompetent, and because he flew under the radar for centuries. He had no real magic, apparently, but tried to learn in secret. Worst combination ever."

"He was a Muggle!" Daphne said in awe. "A squib!"

Mordred frowned. "I don't know those terms."

Sabrina gasped. "Harry Potter?"

"Who?"

"How can you _not_ know Harry Potter?" Daphne looked equally scandalized.

Puck cleared his throat.

"Um. Eyes back on me." He said, annoyed.

Mordred glanced back at him with gratitude. "Don't worry, it doesn't run in the family. Incompetence, I mean. So, what kind of technology you got there that I can link up to?

Puck grimaced. "Uh. Like I said, we're kinda old school. I think Mother still uses dial-up."

Disgusted gasps echoed all around him.

Mordred himself looked like he'd been offered a rotting carcass. " _Dial-up_?! Unbelievable. She should be shot." He sighed loudly. "I'll have to teleport there and set it up on-site. It'll waste precious time, but it can't be helped if _some_ people are still living in the dark ages. The very, very dark ages. Anyway. Meet you there in a couple secs."

"Negative; _I'm_ going after the head honcho. With _these_ guys." Puck thumbed backward at the three fairies dutifully waiting behind him. "Oh, where are my manners? Everyone, meet Larry, Curly and Moe. They were hanging around the palace playing cards like layabouts so I dragged them out for a little field experience. Who wouldn't want to learn to fight a dragon, right?"

The three Fae warriors whose armor, weapons and taut, finely-conditioned bodies indicated the complete opposite of Puck's claim, struggled to keep straight faces. Daphne, with eyes like saucers, whispered, "Those aren't their real names, are they?"

From Sabrina's phone, Mordred hissed in sympathy - or exasperation.

"Po-tay-to, puh-tah-to," Puck rolled his eyes. "Like I was saying, we'll handle the Main Event but Mustardseed's holding the fort, so ask for him when you get there. I'll text him along the way to give him the heads-up."

Mordred stood, and they caught a glimpse of the rest of him in the screen - a black T-shirt with the word "OMNIPOTENT" printed on it in white block letters. It filled them with a sudden, if grim, hope.

Puck nodded at the screen. "I owe you one, man."

For a moment, Mordred looked completely taken aback. Then, he rolled his eyes and muttered. "You and the whole world." But he didn't sound upset; in fact, just before the screen went black, Puck thought he'd saw him smile.

Hands on hips, Puck then turned back to the sisters. "Okay, I thought I told you two to scram."

Sabrina gawked at him. "You've gotta be kidding. _Daphne_ can scram. _I'm_ coming with you! We're a team, remember?"

Daphne yelled, "Hey!" as Puck shook his head violently.

"Not this time," he said, his face serious. "I need you guys back here, where I know you're safe. You need to keep your world covered, in case it all blows up in our faces. Which, you know, it just might. So . . . forgetful dust, wards, shields, magical world-rebuilding, that sorta thing. Get everyone involved - Mordred, too. Pull out all the stops."

"Ha!" Daphne gloated, suitably pacified.

"And where exactly are _you_ going, Commander?" Sabrina spat, dripping sarcasm from every word. She did not appreciate being told to stay put.

"Dunno yet. I might have to search. I have some ideas, but it could be hours, days. However, this is the classic megalomaniac setup, and if we just take down the mastermind, it's game over. Most efficient way to win a war, if you ask me, and we can all go home and party without even getting our pants on fire. But it only works if you stay here and protect your world in case things get nasty. So, _can_ you work with Mordred?"

"What about you? Who's protecting _you_?"

"Excuse me - _I_ don't need protecting. But if we wanna get technical -" Puck gestured to the three fairies hovering behind him, "- then these guys, duh!"

"They're _interns_!" Sabrina balked and then, when she felt Daphne's elbow in her ribs, muttered, "er, no offence, guys."

"They're skilled warriors looking to stretch themselves." Puck rephrased, crossing his arms obstinately.

"Semantics! There are just three of them and a hundred of . . . those!" Sabrina waved at the sky.

"More for each of us then."

"Puck! You almost _died_ last time! If I didn't. . . if. . ."

"Yeah, yeah, you saved me; rub it in, why don't you? Look, I get it. But I fight better knowing you're safe. Please. Stop being so difficult, Grimm. Just this once, listen to me and stay home, okay?"

Daphne swiveled her gaze between her sister and the defiant boy fairy glaring at each other.

"Hate to break up the fight, guys, but time's a-wastin'."

Puck pointed at Daphne. "See? This one's got her priorities right. It's settled then, Stinky. See you sometime in the next century! And if I get back in one piece, you owe me a date. Let's do that hot dog joint again. Best value for money ever."

Sabrina's face darkened.

Puck guffawed, completely out of place for such a serious moment. " _When_! I meant ' _when_ I get back', not 'if'! Hahaha!"

Sabrina bit her lip in frustration. He was always so cavalier! Couldn't he see that this wasn't an easy one-on-one like all the other times he'd taken on dragons? Couldn't he tell that she was actually, truly afraid that he'd get himself into a tight spot, and there'd be no one to intervene the way she had, and it could be the last time she'd see him, and there was still so much she wanted to say, to do, to _be_ \- to him?

And maybe - _maybe_ \- she might even be ready to say, and do, and be all that _right then_ . . . if not for the fact that they had an audience. And that they were also in the middle of the sky, while - as Daphne had rightly pointed out - time's a-wastin'.

As if a lightbulb had finally gone off in his head, Puck's face softened.

"Uh," he said, frowning uncertainly, "I thought you _wanted_ to be apart."

Against her will, Sabrina's voice trembled. "Not like this."

Puck's expression was unfathomable as he reached out and caught a lock of her hair around his finger - a simple gesture that brought a lump into her throat. Suddenly, it felt as if they were the only two people in the world.

"You're not getting rid of me that easily," he told her with a crooked smile that faded quickly back to seriousness. "Stay home, Grimm. Promise me, and I swear to you I'll come back."

Sabrina nodded, not trusting herself to speak, holding his gaze for as long as she could. Then, Puck broke the spell.

"And you'd better be keeping score - because I'm betting that for every one of those insects you swat, I'm taking down one _hundred_."

"Sure about that?" Sabrina shoved him, eyes now hard and glittering.

A burst of laughter. "Adios, then!" He waved his troop forward and disappeared through the clouds.

Sabrina watched him for a second longer, then snapped her attention back to her sister. "Okay, so now we -"

But Daphne was grinning and biting on her hand, even as her eyes were dreamy and glazed. "You two! I _knew_ it!"

* * *

 **A/N: Short chapter today - seemed like a good place to stop. Longer chapters coming up :) My favorite bit was Mordred's EM-field geekery. I'm trying to write him as a 3D character with brains as well as raw power. I mean, he's a gamer but he's also so much more, right?**

 **I'm backlogged on responding to reviews and PMs - so sorry. Here they are (collapsing several chapters' worth):**

 **incognlto (Chap 8): Thank you! This aspect of their relationship (P wanting to protect S, S not wanting to be protected) is such a source of tension for them, isn't it? And yet, at the root of everything is P's raw desire to be useful and wanted and needed, period. I loved the bit in the book where Daphne is the one who's astute enough to see it, and spells it out for Sabrina.**

 **susiequeen300 (Chap 8): Thank you! And yes, Get Your Act Together Already. I want to shake them hard and say, "communicate! Communicate!" **

**susiequeen300 (Chap 10): "unrequited love at its most requited": I think I might get it. We live for it, don't we? Not just the tension, but the promise that it might be resolved in the best possible way?**

 **Readingtillmidnight (Chap 8): Thank you! Poor Puck. It's so hard to watch them navigate who they are with each other when the stakes are so high. It makes me think of Bradley, and what P must've felt about him (B) supposedly being enough for S. It was like all the "I can't be everything for S" times one million. **

**Octaviawithstarsforeyes (Chap 10): Yay for you updating all your stories! It's been so long since I watched Toy Story but I remember those aliens! Funny! And Basil - for some reason, Basil-the-tech-geek is headcanon for me. I wrote him the same way in another story (Brink) except older and more snarky. But Mordred! I can't say more without spoiling, but . . . Mordred! ! ! !**

 **Chiyokira (Chap 10): Thank you for supporting my Puck-portrayal. Yay. It gets more challenging to keep him in character as I write more facets of his personality and background (son, brother, boyfriend, King, adoptee-grandson, etc.). As he gets more complex, I hope I won't veer too far from what we envision him as an older version of the book's character. Fingers crossed.**

 **Thank you all for sharing your thoughts! Keep 'em coming, as I keep writing/editing, okay? They motivate me to not slack off and . . . I dunno, bake Christmas cookies or something instead.**


	12. Chapter Eleven

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

No one could say that for all his obsessive gaming, Mordred Le Fay didn't take his work seriously. Hardly any warlock, for instance, could manipulate the virtual fabric of the universe better; once he'd teleported to Faerie and siphoned the dragon horde out of the ether, the humans never even guessed how close they'd been to seeing their world burn. On their end, Relda and Canis had watched the skies until it became too dark, and reported no other sightings either, and Basil's Seeing Eye fell - and stayed - gratifyingly silent.

The next day's news was exactly as Mordred had predicted: the scientific world was abuzz with excitement - and bewilderment - at the strange phenomena that rocked New York City that Tuesday afternoon. Atmospheric aberrations and astrophysical spectacles such as had never been seen clustered in a single, seemingly random geographical location. Off-the-charts data without physical evidence. Unexplainable frequency modulations from untraceable sources. Ghosts in the machine.

Conspiracy theories abounded. _It's Roswell 1947 all over again_ , the tabloids screamed.

It was, in other words, a complete success, and the Grimms breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Sabrina let all of Wednesday go by, at the end of which she called Puck's cellphone.

There was no answer.

"What do you expect," she attempted to be rational, "when the boy is out in the field? He's probably hiding in a tree somewhere, watching the enemy, and I might've just given away his hiding place by making his phone ring. Stupid!"

She didn't really believe he'd actually let that happen, but it'd made her feel better to blame herself for something; _anything_ was better than waiting and not knowing.

* * *

Once again, Puck sliced through the sky in pursuit of dragons. Although this time he was not a boy on a search-and-rescue mission, like a gallant knight in days of yore. This time, he was the King of Faerie on a quest to uncover the source of the scourge upon his land, to atone for the sins of his father and reckon with the monster they had become.

Hemming him in behind and on either side were his entourage of three, handpicked for their loyalty, courage, and skill in warfare. They'd never fought dragons, but neither had any others in his army, and when Sabrina had asked for help, he'd chosen the best he had, and they'd come as soon as they'd bid their families goodbye. An odd decree - taking the time to set their affairs in order - especially when it'd meant losing precious moments but he'd insisted; he, if anyone, knew the risk, the sacrifice he was asking of them.

This was a war, after all; monsters were not known for their mercy, and dragons even less so.

* * *

On Thursday, Sabrina found herself back at school (ostensibly "recovered from her family emergency") for what she considered an utter waste of time because she absorbed nothing at all in any class, not with her mind hijacked by dragons and fairies and magic carpets. When one of her friends had elbowed her in the ribs and hissed, "Stop daydreaming, Sabrina! There's a quiz after the weekend; wake up and write down all that stuff on the board! You're like in another world!" she hadn't even appreciated the irony.

Once she was out of the school building, she called Mustardseed.

"No news," he told her, sounding tired. "But Mordred's been working wonders here. Also, the dragons have surrounded us, but they're not attacking. If I didn't know better, I'd say they're waiting for orders. It's nerve-wracking, but at least they're in our world and out of yours."

"How are you holding up?" She asked him.

"As best we can. Our armies are ready for war but I pray it won't come to that. It's a good thing Mother's out, or we might already be charging into the fray."

"Where is she?"

"Oh, on one of her trips to visit other kingdoms, no doubt. Or so she claims. Personally, I suspect she's actually shopping in Milan or Paris. How are _you_ doing, by the way?"

"Scared," she admitted. "I just want to know that he's okay. But don't you dare tell him I said that."

"Of course not," he assured her, and she detected mirth in his tone. "Don't worry, Sabrina. He's gone on dangerous missions before. Some even more foolhardy than this."

"Why am I not surprised? Anyway, will you call if anything . . .?"

"As soon as I hear something."

* * *

The King of Faerie was three bodies deep in a living wall of scales and talons. After back-tracking the original migration for over a day, Puck and his small contingent had come upon a defensive aerial formation of more dragons over an arid plain. The small Fae force had attacked, only to find themselves forced back, overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the creatures. A quick tactical briefing later, they set upon the dragons once more and this time relentlessly hacked their way through them. Or at least Puck's three warriors did; Puck himself hovered nearby to "direct operations and observe the fun". Whatever experience his warriors lacked they made up for in enthusiasm and sheer brute force. They'd taken out more than half the flight when Puck noticed his soldiers flagging. He frowned: their fatigue was making them careless and, subsequently, vulnerable.

"Keep together!" Puck reminded his team. "Work in pairs and isolate them! Lothorien, you're with me."

Lothorien nodded and joined his King as Puck avoided the sweep of a spiked tail, then rammed his sword up to its hilt in the dragon's sagging abdomen. Hot liquid exploded down his arm and he yanked his weapon out with a grimace.

"Hate that," he complained as he turned to Lothorien. "Finish him off, captain."

They were cutting through the last of the dragons when Puck noticed that one in particular was holding back, preferring, like Puck himself, to stay on the periphery and only occasionally participate in the slaughter. This one's scales shone so brightly that its body was almost silver in the light, and when it did deign to fight, it moved with superior power and grace to the rest. He watched this dragon in utter fascination, until it expelled a jet of flame at one of his soldiers and scorched half his hair off. His partner narrowly avoided the flames but retreated straight into the path of another beast, which snapped its jaws around his shield arm.

Puck yelled at Lothorien to keep fighting, then put his arms around his two other captains, who were wincing with pain.

"Return to Faerie immediately," Puck ordered, "and get yourself patched up. Lothorien and I will finish up here and be on our way."

The two injured warriors vehemently protested, insisting on staying to protect their king on pain of death.

"Nonsense!" Puck declared imperiously. " _I_ don't need protection. But you guys do. I mean, just _look_ at you! You have families who want you back alive, so git. And that's an order, soldiers!"

Lowering their gazes, they submitted and after a few more terse instructions, Puck dismissed them. For a little while, he watched their unsteady departure with an anxious scowl, then turned to his remaining companion.

"That drake - the silver one - was the leader," he returned to the issue at hand. "Not one to be messed with; he's very skilled. I didn't see what happened to him at the end. Did you?"

"He left, with the few remaining beasts, Sire, by that way." Lothorien pointed in the direction of the mountains.

"He could've taken us easily," Puck noted, "but didn't. I wonder why."

"Probably to lure us somewhere else. His lair, no doubt."

"My thoughts exactly. Let's give him what he wants, then." Puck's wings fluttered, preparing to lift him airborne once more.

"It's a trap, Majesty."

"I _know_ that!" Puck blew a rude sound through his lips. "But we won't know what the trap's _for_ unless we take this adventure, right?"

Lothorien scratched his head. In his experience, smart soldiers did not knowingly walk - or fly - into traps. Then again, he reflected, his King's idea of smartness usually challenged even the most liberal definitions of the word. He remained respectfully silent.

"By the way," Puck added, "you fought well, Captain. There's hardly a scratch on you."

"Because you were watching my back, Sire." Lothorien stolidly nodded his thanks.

"Mm, yes. I _am_ amazing that way. Although," his King narrowed his eyes, "your unblemished armor could also have been the result of you slacking off."

"I assure you, Your Majesty, that I did not!" The captain flushed hotly.

"I was kidding, Lothorien. Lighten up! You're always so serious, it's depressing! I was _watching_ you, wasn't I? You have a good sword arm."

Lotterien hesitated, suspicious that he might be taken in a second time, but Puck had moved on, fiddling with something between the protective layers of his suit.

"Do you have a pocket?" Puck mumbled distractedly, patting himself all over.

"Sire?"

"I said, 'do you have a pocket?' I want you to keep something safe for me."

"Yes, yes, of course, Sire."

Puck handed him his phone. "I don't want it falling out mid-fight. Or, worse, getting all bloody - it's a sure way to void the warranty."

Lothorien took it with a frown.

Puck rolled his eyes. "Ask your question, Captain. We don't want you up all night burning of curiosity."

"Why did you bring your phone with you to war, Sire?"

"You are naive in the ways of human teenagers! Our phones are our souls! We never leave home without them! Even when the coverage stinks."

"With all due respect, Sire, you are not a human teenager."

"Well, look who's been paying attention in class! Of course I'm not a human teenager! But Sabrina Grimm, who thinks we're all backward idiots, is, and I've made it my personal goal to prove her wrong. We in Faerie can _totally_ can move with the times! Well . . . aside from the dial-up modem thing, which, by the way, was completely my mother's idea, not mine. Besides, have you seen Prince Mustardseed lately? He's got _his_ phone practically glued to his face. Now, are we going to sit around discussing stupid human technology or are we going to kick some serious dragon butt?"

Lothorien pocketed the phone without another word.

* * *

By the time school was over on Friday, Sabrina was almost out of her mind.

She went to Henry with a proposition.

"Dad," she began, "I can't stand it. I need to go to Faerie."

Her father looked up from the journal he'd been reading on the their herd behavior of dragon tribes, and frowned.

"Why? Have you lost your mind? They're at war! "

"They're at war because _we_ sent the dragons into their world. Don't you think we should try to help? Besides, all this waiting is driving me nuts. I need to do _something_."

"I seem to remember that the dragons were heading for Faerie anyway. And besides, what help could _you_ give?"

"Anything! I'd help Mordred, help Mustardseed, fight the dragons, anything!"

"You've got school," her father reasoned. "You can't just take off and not go to school."

 _Again_ , he added silently.

"Just for the weekend, Dad. And it's a long weekend - I'll be back Monday night. I won't be missing any school. I'll go mad if I sit around here and do nothing!"

Henry waited before he spoke again, watching his daughter's distraught face as he considered the facts.

"Being in Faerie isn't going to bring Puck back sooner," he pointed out gently. "And they've got those dragons to deal with. You might get in the way."

"I won't! I can fight dragons! And did you forget the Everafter War? That we _won_? And I know you're thinking I'm being impulsive again, but look - I could've gone rushing off without telling anyone, but I'm not. See? I've thought this through. Come on, Dad."

Henry took several breaths, weighing all the things that were important to him as a fighter, gatekeeper, mentor, protector, father. . .

Father won.

"Just for the weekend," he conceded with empathy. "And keep your phone on."

Sabrina threw her arms around him and was packed and out the door in fifteen minutes.

* * *

Sabrina made a mental note to update her repertoire of knock-knock jokes as she barked out a particularly lame one to the Hans Christian Andersen statue in Central Park and was zapped out of her world and into Puck's. When she became aware of her new surroundings, she wasn't in the raucous Golden Egg pub she'd remembered from her earlier visit - she found herself instead in an elegant chandeliered waiting room she'd never seen before. Settees and armchairs in rich fabrics threaded through with gold stood on plush ivory carpet that seemed to swallow her feet. On the walls hung gorgeous watercolor pictures of fireflies in the woods on a summer night, and a sweet scent settled in the air from magnolias floating in glass bowls on side tables. It was a beautiful and utterly normal room, except for the fact that there wasn't a single window or door. It was also - apart from the extravagant furnishings - completely empty.

Sabrina wondered if she'd somehow lost her way, or if the statue-gatekeeper of Puck's kingdom had played a prank. It certainly wouldn't have surprised her, considering whom it was that helmed said kingdom.

The rustle of fabric behind her made her turn - to see a fairy dressed in a dress of midnight blue, with eyes to match.

"Sabrina Grimm. Welcome," the fairy said. "His Highness Prince Mustardseed sent me to receive you. I'm Feylinn - my mother is Oberon's youngest sister."

"Hello," Sabrina blinked, confused about how the fairy had appeared; she hadn't heard a door open. "How . . .? Where is this? What happened to the Golden Egg? It used to be here . . . I mean, this used to be it . . . right?"

Feylinn nodded. "His Majesty cleaned it up - found jobs and homes for all the riffraff, as he called them. It was just as well, as he also apparently didn't think much of the food, either. Now this -" she gestured to their posh surroundings, "- is just an anteroom."

"But . . . how would anyone know what to do or. . . where to go, if they came here? What if a human dropped in by accident, like if they stood too close to the statue in the park and happened to tell a joke. . ."

In her earlier attempts to wrap her mind around Puck's other-dimensional world, she'd always entertained that possibility - unhappy coincidences which brought unsuspecting innocents from her world into a psychological nightmare.

Her host sighed. "As some have. They'll stay trapped here for all eternity until someone rescues them. They'll have lost time, but they won't remember much, if at all; they'll only think they'd been in one of New York City's more eclectic museums. However, that memory will haunt them for the rest of their lives. They'll be obsessed in their search for it but they won't find it again, obviously. Usually, they simply go mad."

Sabrina's stomach turned. "That's . . . awful!"

"It doesn't happen often." Feylinn shut her eyes and bowed her head, as if the infrequency of the occurrence somehow softened its terribleness. "But such is the way of the Fae: deception and trickery and consuming desire. Personally, I am not proud of some of its . . . effects . . . on mortals, but it is what it is. When our worlds were first founded, one was never meant to have dealings with the other."

Then she opened her eyes once more, and they sparkled in her face, her somber mood at once gone. "But come - you are an honored guest, and your visit has been much anticipated. Shall we -? And I should warn you - it will be chaotic; we are at war."

Sabrina was amused by how matter-of-fact Feylinn had sounded as she announced this last part - she was probably exaggerating just to prepare her for the worst, she thought; she'd seen and heard nothing to indicate any sign of the slightest unrest, let alone a full-blown battle. In fact, the air was so quiet that she could almost hear it hum.

She followed the fairy girl down a passageway lined with flickering lights which, as they passed, Sabrina realized were fireflies dancing in and out of glass sconces. She started in astonishment - she hadn't remembered seeing the hallway there any more than an entrance through which the fairy had appeared. When she voiced this, Feylinn offered the cryptic explanation, "it can only be found by those who know where it is."

Sabrina's mind was mulling over the strange logic when she remembered something else. "So, you're Puck's cousin? Er . . . I mean, His Majesty's?"

"Call him what you will, Sabrina Grimm. We've all heard the reports. I can hardly imagine he'd take offense at being on a first-name basis with you."

"Reports?" Sabrina asked warily.

"Oh, we love our gossip in Faerie. And gossip about the King is even more delectable. But that he has chosen to age for a human girl? Positively scandalous. But don't worry, the talk has all been complimentary. Well. . . mostly. There will always be those jealous maidens who believe they're the ones fated to be hanging on his arm."

Feylinn smiled mischievously at her. "Not that any have dared act on that belief."

Sabrina didn't know if she were expected to sigh with relief or roll her eyes. She chose neither, and instead asked Feylinn what she did in the palace when she wasn't playing host to clueless visitors.

The fairy girl blinked at her, confused. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, surely you don't just show visitors to their rooms all day long? How many visitors do you get on any given day, anyway?"

Feylinn seemed at a loss for words. Then, her face opened up once more and she relaxed.

"This _is_ what I do. I was trained from a child to understand the ways of our people, and of the many other Everafters in the world, and I now serve in the court so that Faerie can be a gracious host to its visitors near and far. In recent centuries, as our collaborations have increased to include mortals, I've also been sent to _your_ world to learn its many customs and languages."

Sabrina immediately felt like an insensitive lout and considered clamming up before she offended Feylinn any further. But curiosity overcame her and she ventured, "How many languages _do_ you know?"

"Seven thousand, five hundred and thirty-three, at last count. That includes dialects and pidgins, of course."

Sabrina's jaw hit the floor.

"That's - that's _amazing_."

Feylinn smiled her thanks.

"I love what I do," she replied with shining eyes. "My only regret is that there are so few who do it. There is a need for us in the royal families, for obvious reasons, but I've always thought that the relations between worlds could be so much better if we understood that our differences were not something to fear, but to celebrate. If there's one thing I'd want, it would be that - to help heal the fighting between the nations and realms with just my words. And I believe that having more of us - trained, and not just in palaces - is the first step toward that. But the courts are so short-sighted, and only care for what is immediately needful within their walls."

Sabrina felt suddenly very small beside this gracious, and _very_ poised royal cousin, and it wasn't because she was a total knockout in her gorgeous wrap dress. Although that, too; it was hard not to feel crude and rough in her own practical and nondescript clothes as she watched the residents of Faerie - fine-boned and beautifully-dressed - hurry back and forth around them, elegant even in their haste. Feylinn stopped one or two of them to converse briefly in one of her many languages. The passers-by snuck glances as they replied, their eyes widening at the sight of Sabrina, before narrowing in skepticism or disdain.

Feylinn then ushered her down a maze of interconnecting hallways until they came at last to a series of doors. "Your room," Feylinn announced presently, opening one of the doors. "And to answer your question, no; we haven't heard from His Majesty, but two of his contingent have just returned."

Sabrina started, not entering the room. "His interns?"

Feylinn raised one eyebrow in surprise. "What a strange word, Sabrina. You imply they are lacking in skill. No, they are not; they are among our best. His Majesty trained them himself. I've just heard that they're wounded from the battle."

A hard knot formed in Sabrina's stomach. "Wounded? And . . . Puck?"

"I'm heading to the council now and will bring you any news -"

"Then I'm coming, too. My room can wait." Sabrina tossed her backpack through the open doorway and turned back to her Fae hostess. "Come on! Let's go!"

As they wound their way through more hallways, the dull hum that Sabrina had noticed when she'd first arrived in Faerie grew all around her. It reminded her of getting lost as a child in the back rooms of a football stadium and sensing, rather than hearing, the muted roar of the crowd through the thick walls. Now, the noise increased steadily but it wasn't voices cheering - she'd begun to recognize the sounds of battle: clamoring, shouting, the bellowing of beasts and men and the ring of steel and stone. By the time they arrived at the closed oak doors, she could hear everything as if she were in the thick of it. More memories came back to her of the war she'd fought - and almost lost - and she knew what she'd see even before they entered.

Her senses were drawn immediately to the large windows. Outside was a slowly-deepening twilight, the backdrop to a distant battle of flame and shadows. The sounds overwhelmed her, as did the smell of burning. Sabrina forced her eyes away from the windows and to what was immediately before her. Only a few people stood in the middle of the cavernous meeting hall. Of these, Sabrina recognized Mustardseed, but just barely - when she'd last seen him many years earlier, he'd looked no older than Puck had been but now he stood tall and gravely dignified, and - even with the masculine lines of face and body hidden under dirt and ash and dark armor - beautiful in the same way that his brother was.

She marveled that he, too, had aged. Perhaps - she guessed - because Puck had.

The other members of the council looked like they were born and bred for war - radiating strength in their armor of leather and black steel. The two fighters that had returned - the ones Sabrina called Puck's _interns_ \- were just leaving, ostensibly to have their injuries tended in some convalescence chamber elsewhere. Sabrina bit her lip in frustration at having missed their report, but Feylinn was already whispering in her ear that they'd seen nothing of Puck after he'd dismissed them to return to Faerie to see to their wounds.

"They'd have been no significant help in their state," Feylinn concurred, "and might have been a liability, even. It was the right thing to have done. Even _they_ acknowledge it. Puck and his remaining captain went on to meet the enemy."

"Just the two of them?" Sabrina whispered back. "But that's suicide! They need reinforcements! Can't Mustardseed send some?"

Feylinn hushed her then, because the other battalion leaders had resumed their discussion on the dragons surrounding Faerie. Which, sometime between Sabrina's phone call to Mustardseed and her arriving in Puck's kingdom, had - finally - attacked.

Sabrina listened with a sinking heart and pieced together the report as best she could: the dragons, as if on some pre-arranged signal, had suddenly broken out of formation and begun razing homes and open land. Outmatched by size alone, the army of Faerie worked in teams to isolate and subdue the beasts. As they'd dropped out of the sky toward the earth, broken and shrieking, the dragons had shrunk - _transformed_ \- into Fae.

It was as if they'd changed to save themselves, the commanders reported. But they'd died, all the same.

And Mustardseed had hesitated.

Fae that could shift into dragons - he'd only ever known of two who had that power. And neither of them was home at the palace right then. So he'd given the order to not kill the dragons - if not for respect for his Queen Mother and King, then at least to capture as many as possible for interrogation.

But it was almost more difficult to incapacitate a dragon to within inches of death than it was to simply finish it off. The Fae army did their best, but they'd never fought an entire fleet. The casualty rate was climbing and the dragons were _still_ coming. Every eye watched Mustardseed as he stood with the weight of all those lives on his shoulders, knowing the call was his, and his alone, to make.

Sabrina looked from one tense face to another, wondering why on earth no one had thought of the obvious. She waited for someone to say it.

The silence stretched on, like a bowstring ready to snap.

She sighed and raised her hand, forgetting that she wasn't in school, then cleared her throat.

"Uh. . . what about dislocation? If you dislocate their wing joints, they can't fly, but they won't die. They might even surrender and go home."

In one accord, all eyes turned on her. If the air in the room was thick before, it was positively suffocating now. Sabrina immediately regretted speaking up. Maybe if she snuck out now when -

The oldest-looking of the commanders eyed her with suspicion and barked, "And how came you this counsel, human?"

 _Major foot in mouth! Too late now!_

"Um, once Puck and . . . I mean, His Majesty dislocated his wing during a fight with another dragon . . . er, he was a dragon himself, and I had to set his wing back because he absolutely couldn't fly and was in great pain and . . . um -"

"You set _His Majesty's_ wing?"

"It really wasn't as big a deal as it sounds." Sabrina blushed, remembering the swearing, the climbing, the shoving and the skin - oh heavens - all that _skin_.

Gasps of disbelief and outrage exploded around her and Sabrina winced at what she now realized was a glaring faux pas. She'd just humiliated the King of Faerie before his court, then minimized his considerable injuries by calling them a Small Deal. She wanted to dig a hole and bury herself. For good.

"It might work -" Mustardseed's voice suddenly cut through the tension, " - setting their wings out of joint. Excruciating pain, but no lasting damage, and quite possible that they'd be forced to the ground or else shift to a smaller form in order to take the weight off and find relief. We've all had it happen to ourselves at least once - surely you recall the agony, particularly in flight. It's enough to bring even the strongest among us to our knees. I can only imagine how much more debilitating that would be for a creature that massive."

The silence broke into uncomfortable fidgeting as each person in the room - except Sabrina - seemed to be bringing forth an acutely unpleasant memory from their pasts. Beside her, Feylinn shuddered.

Mustardseed turned to the leaders of his army, still thinking aloud, "It would require a great deal of force, administered at exactly the right angle. . . perhaps a well-aimed blow combined with . . . hm . . . I believe the warriors could do it. There is no harm in trying it. Send word to them immediately to adopt this new strategy."

At once, the commanders bowed respectfully and exited the room, casting not even a single glance in Sabrina's direction. The remaining Fae twittered among themselves, surreptitiously looking back toward her, astonishment and indignation clearly painted on their faces.

"Bear them no heed," Mustardseed murmured as he came at last to stand at Sabrina's side, and she caught the scent of smoke and sweat and blood. "They're probably wishing they'd had the honor of ministering healing to His Majesty's precious limbs."

"I didn't minister anything," Sabrina protested. "And I'm sorry - I didn't mean to sound -"

Mustardseed waved her words away. "And that's probably why they're so envious." He held out his hand to her. "Welcome. I trust Feylinn has given you the grand tour and shown you to your room?"

Sabrina shook her head. "No, I wanted to come straight here and hear the news. Is Puck okay?"

Mustardseed shook his own head and repeated the part of the report she'd missed from Puck's two companions: his team had cut through the dragon horde and tried to track them to their source, but were set upon by more and barely escaped with their lives. Puck had sent back the two with the worst injuries, leaving just one warrior to go on with him. The two wounded fighters had relayed only one order from their King: for Faerie to send no reinforcements, saving all their fighting men to defend their kingdom; if he found the mastermind behind this, he'd take him down alone.

"What?" Sabrina gasped. "By himself?"

"And Lothorien, I imagine - that's the captain who's with him."

"So we still know nothing about what's going on!" Sabrina felt like she could box Puck's face in. _If_ he'd been there.

"Except that he wasn't dead when they left him." Mustardseed finished optimistically.

Sabrina wanted to box Mustardseed's face in, too.

But there was nothing to do but wait - both for the results of the battle, and for news of Puck.

* * *

Thousands of miles away, Titania, the last Queen of Faerie, flew home. For eons, Faerie - the _old_ Faerie - had been such an institution in the fairy world and Titania its charismatic imperator that many had forgotten there existed other Fae empires, and other queens before her.

Or that there'd been a time when she'd been the daughter of a king who had made a desperate choice, the repercussions of which she was living every minute of every day of the rest of her long, immortal life. Once, that king had been strong and good but as he grew advanced in age, he'd succumbed to his battle wounds and lay beyond the help of even the magic of his people. She'd made the journey home to see her father - every ten or twenty years, give or take, when Oberon was alive, and more frequently since she'd been widowed - but it was painful to see him wither with each visit, and his mind rapidly addle, until he barely knew her, couldn't rouse himself to appoint a successor, didn't even notice the civil war that broke out in the streets around his home. She'd sometimes wondered if his body had finally been broken in the wars he'd tried so hard to prevent, or if it were guilt at what he'd done to her that kept their magic from healing him.

After he'd died, she'd stayed away for a time, mourning from afar because she had nothing and no one left in the city she could call hers.

Except for one - and he was forbidden.

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you for the reviews! I think I'm mostly caught up with responding via PM so just a shout out to the two guests reviewers I wasn't able to personally reply to: glad you liked the story so far and here is the next chapter!**

 **Oh, Lothorien. There's a warrior who takes his battles seriously. . . and then there's Puck. Unending source of exasperation for his captains yet they can't help but defer to him because he's so _good_ at what he does. What _does_ one do with someone like that, was my mindset as I was writing the interaction between them. Grrr.**

 **But - ah - Mother's made her appearance. . . but why? Make a guess, then tune in next time to find out!**


	13. Chapter Twelve

**CHAPTER TWELVE**

Her city was deserted.

Not _ransacked-and-pillaged deserted_ ; the womenfolk and children were still going about their business, tending to domestic chores and their little ones who were playing among the trees in the deep green valley. The males - the warriors and hunters - were conspicuously absent, however, as were the metallic sounds of their weapons against anvils and sharpening stones and the tall, chipped training poles standing in a ring in the main square.

Puzzled by the silence, Titania frowned as she descended past the caves in the cliffside and landed before the huts lining the curving streets. On the front steps of the nearest sat a young woman with a swollen belly, whittling a piece of wood with a knife. At her feet, a small child scratched stick figures on the cobblestones with a piece of charred wood. The woman blinked startled eyes at the stranger's approach before lowering them in apprehension.

"Where are they?" Titania marched up to her and got straight to the point.

The woman dipped her head. "I don't know, my lady." The knife in her hand continued chipping. _Whit-whit-whit_.

"When did they leave?"

"Two days ago."

This did not surprise Titania; the men often did not confide in their womenfolk the details of their comings-and-goings. What did surprise her was that they'd left the city undefended; even on hunts, which this probably was, there was always the risk of retaliation, particularly with the kind of quarry her people favored.

"And Niall?"

"He led them, lady." _Whit-whit-whit._

"Yes, I know that," Titania snapped. "But did he not leave any instructions for the women?"

The woman shook her head. "Only to prepare a victory feast, as always."

Titania exhaled in irritation. She would have to track them herself.

"Which direction?" She demanded.

The rhythmic whittling stopped at last as the woman raised her arm and pointed away to the east. Titania nodded her thanks and, sensing no further help forthcoming, turned to go, but the woman spoke again.

"He called it a _sos'kein_."

Titania froze. " _What_ did you say?"

The woman smugly repeated her pronouncement, pleased with its effect on the powerful outsider whose manner was more like that of their male warriors than some of the more docile members of her gender. If she'd been older, she might've recognized Titania as the princess she was and paid her a more appropriate level of respect, but it'd been a long time ago, and the king himself had been dead many years.

Titania herself seemed oblivious to the woman's impertinence. Cold fury and dread washed over her as she pieced together a scenario she hardly dared imagine. If the woman was telling the truth, it was _not_ a hunt for which the men had left but a vicious bloodbath over sullied honor culminating in a feast on the flesh of the vanquished. While herself no stranger to taking lives, particularly in battle, the _sos'kein_ \- _blood war_ \- was one tradition of her people to which she could never ally herself; it was petty and tasteless and Titania prided herself in being anything but. Besides, she'd always believed there were far better ways to protect her people than what amounted to cannibalizing their enemies, and she'd vowed that when it came her time to rule, she'd abolish it once and for all.

Then her father had promised her to Oberon to end a long feud between their kingdoms, and she'd been sent away to be queen of another realm. Before she'd left, however, she'd made the old king swear to end it and to find new paths to power, and when centuries passed with no news of any resurgence of this heinous act, she believed he'd kept his promise.

She realized her error now - her father might have honored his oath but she hadn't thought to also secure the word of his generals - the ones who carried out his edicts - believing they would never act outside his will.

How inexcusably naive.

Because one of them, Niall - _her_ Niall - was apparently continuing the bloody legacy. And - if the clues had been pointing true - she thought she might know why.

She rose into the air on wings that beat almost as fast as her heart, and rocketed toward the east.

* * *

Sabrina spent the after-dinner hours (she ate nothing) in Faerie with Feylinn, and was pleasantly surprised that the Fae girl was not at all like Moth. She realized it was an utterly irrational association but other than Titania, Moth was really the only other female fairy she knew and her interactions with either had made her secretly wonder if all the rest were similarly conniving and self-serving. She was thankful - and slightly chastised - to discover that Feylinn was the kind of girl she herself would've admired when she was a freshman looking up to the seniors at school. The kind, she reflected, with perfect hair and perfect motor coordination and who aced all her classes and thrashed opponents on debate and sports teams, both. And she hadn't forgotten Feylinn's passionate speech about fortifying cultural relations between the many Everafter communities, or her dream for unity - it resonated with something in Sabrina's own soul, the yearning to feel at home in a different world, of being okay with _other-_ ness.

Plus, it didn't help that Feylinn's clothes were to absolutely _die_ for or that she was also _nice_ ; it made it that much harder for Sabrina to feel sorry for herself for wearing old jeans and the same T-shirt for the second day in a row. First, Mustardseed - resplendently charismatic even covered in the soil of battle - and now Feylinn; why, she wondered - not for the first time - would Puck see anything in _her_ when he was surrounded by such gorgeousness and moral perfection on a daily basis?

She snuffed out the thought and told her insecurities to go stuff themselves; she'd come to help fight a war, not preen and flutter about nail color and dresses. Unfortunately, there was nothing for her to actually do, war-wise - Mustardseed was in council meetings which she suspected might go on for days, and the actual fighting, as she'd expected, was limited only to those who could fly. Aware of her affinity for battle, Feylinn had shown her the royal armory but she'd found that she didn't know how to use more than half the weapons in it, and was thus unable even to practice the techniques Puck had taught her when they were younger. So they'd talked instead, and she'd learned about Faerie in the hands of Puck and Mustardseed - how it was so much better than when Oberon had been King, but also how much more work there was still to be done to empower the people and break the cycles of poverty, crime and need. By the time the fairy girl had left her company for bed, Sabrina was feeling utterly obsolete and beginning to believe her father had been right about her being in Faerie. She couldn't help. And she sure as anything wasn't enjoying sitting around waiting for news of Puck.

Homework it was, then. After all, assuming Armageddon didn't annihilate their world over the weekend, she'd still have to turn up at school on Tuesday and take that wretched quiz. So she pulled out her laptop, rolled her eyes when the screen complained that there was no wi-fi, and went to find Mordred.

He was slouched despondently in his chair before an ancient-looking PC, still wearing his OMNIPOTENT T-shirt, its effect now sadly lost in the creases bunched above his belly. Sabrina felt slightly placated that she wasn't the only person in Faerie who hadn't bothered to be glamorous.

"Mordred," she began, "sorry for such a late visit, but I need internet. And not dial-up; _real_ internet."

"Tell me about it," he replied, huffing in indignation. "It's reprehensible that an organization as massive as this still depends on dial-up. And, mind you, since it _is_ dial-up, I'm using the word 'depends' extremely loosely. I'm planning to set up wi-fi in this whole rig ASAP. Free of charge. Hell, I'd even _pay_ them to let me do it because no one, unless it's some particularly sadistic form of torture, should have dealings with modems. Really, how _does_ Titania do her online shopping? Look at this screen! It's _green_. And pixelated! I thought these things went extinct decades ago or used to build walls in some third-world country or something. Unfortunately, I can't get the whole place wired up yet because my priority, apparently, is 'blocking the mortal world from further dragon invasion, and monitoring'."

He made air quotation marks around his assigned mission and rolled his eyes. Sabrina waited patiently for him to finish his tirade.

"But yeah, I can patch you some high-speed in a minute," he promised, then peered at her as if it'd only just occurred to him that she was actually there in Faerie. "Couldn't keep away, huh? I'd have thought His Overprotective Majesty would've forced you to stay home where you're safer. Not that anywhere's safe right now."

Sabrina frowned. Was it _that_ obvious?

"Please," Mordred said dryly. "I may be a recluse but I'm not blind. What was it this time? Let me guess - he made you take a blood oath to not leave the house."

She glared at him. "He swore that if I stayed home, he'd come back."

"And look where you are now," Mordred laughed. "So much for keeping your word. Oops for him, I guess."

Sabrina froze in sudden trepidation. She'd always pooh-poohed superstitions but . . . what if . . .? Surely her little infraction didn't count?

"They don't take their promises literally, surely?" She worried aloud.

"You never know with the Fae," Mordred said ominously, taking her laptop from her and delving into its settings. "They're very tricky and never say anything straight."

"But Puck is different," she argued.

" _Is_ he?" Mordred voiced his skepticism, pausing in his work to flick his gaze toward her. "Thought he'd be _exactly_ like the rest of 'em, given that he's their King and all. But what do I know? I'm not the one snogging him; I'm just the tech support boy."

Mordred handed her back her laptop.

"Surf yourself out, Mrs. Goodfellow," he drawled sardonically and turned back to his offensively-low-res screen.

Rendered speechless and with her face burning, Sabrina let herself out.

* * *

Well after midnight, a swarm of pixies poured through the open window of the council chamber and twittered around Mustardseed's head. For hours, the Prince had been waiting for news as he managed the battle from where he stood over a table covered with maps and charts and an obscene amount of paperwork. Through the watches of the night, generals and messengers came and went as their Commander-in-chief issued orders, diverted troops, and made split-second decisions with a preternatural calm.

Now he paused in his work and listened intently to the tiny messengers. Sabrina, who'd opted to camp out in the chamber over the isolation of her own room, was trying to focus her thoughts away from bloodshed and talons and on the economic system of the European Union instead. She looked up, uselessly straining her ears toward the meaningless squeaks and whistles and wished she had Feylinn's impressive linguistic prowess. Or magic.

At last the pixies fell silent and Mustardseed turned to Sabrina with a smile.

"You've been here barely hours and already proven yourself useful - your advice had merit; the dragons are being disabled and we were able to take prisoners, not lives. Well counseled, Sabrina."

Sabrina's shoulders slumped in relief as Mustardseed exhaled audibly and leaned heavily against the table.

"I would've felt better knowing the news even sooner," he admitted, "but we depend on the little folk, and flying takes time. Still, it was worth the wait. Well! Now that _that's_ over, perhaps we can get back to the _real_ battle. There's a tax inspector coming from the IRS tomorrow to look over our finances. Or maybe it's the auditor. Which one's worse? I can never remember."

He slapped the formidable stack of papers in front of him and Sabrina had the distinct impression that he would've preferred to cut it to shreds with his sword if he could.

She made a face. "Good luck," she said, grateful for his attempt at humor in spite of their dire circumstances. "I'd rather fight dragons."

"Who wouldn't?" Mustardseed agreed. "Although I suppose that if the audit goes poorly, we can always feed the wretched man - or woman - to the several hundred dragons in our dungeons. I'm sure the IRS won't miss one employee. They have so many after all that they're practically an infestation."

Sabrina's eyebrows shot up at his serious expression. Then, unexpectedly, he threw back his head and laughed, and she could practically see the tension from the last few days lift from his posture.

"Speaking of which," he continued, "I will still need to deal with the dragons themselves. Or shapeshifters, whatever they are. We need to extract information from them - who sent them, why, where they're from. I'll have someone start the process right away. It's a pity my mother isn't here - she'd have been ideal for the task. Get some sleep, Sabrina; there's not much more to be done tonight."

Sabrina shook her head, all prepared to stay up till Puck returned, but a yawn betrayed her, and it occurred to her that Mustardseed, too, looked as if he might fall asleep on his feet.

* * *

That an entire flight of dragons could be subdued in a matter of hours, not even days, was utterly unexpected. And gratefully welcomed.

But while no one begrudged the relative ease of the victory, rumors and theories flew. There was talk that the dragons, being actually Fae, were not as formidable as real dragons (this was violently opposed by those who'd seen their Queen Mother in her dragon form and still had nightmares about it). Some people said that the dragons were under a spell, and the pain administered by Faerie's soldiers disenchanted them and made them docile as mice. Other said it was merely a hunting ploy and that the starving creatures had actually planned to be captured so as to secure food by eating their wardens. And a few - although the numbers grew with each hour - suggested in scandalous whispers that the human girl, the one with whom their King was so besotted, and who'd given the advice about the wings, had been in cahoots with the enemy all this time, and they'd all do well to prepare for a coup against the crown before long.

Whatever the story that was embellished around the dinner tables that night and passed from mouth to ear in the marketplaces the next morning, it brought comfort to the citizens of Faerie who, barely hours earlier, had believed their land would be burned to the ground. But of how odd it was that there'd appeared an entire host of other Fae with the kind of abilities that, up till then, they'd only beheld in their King and his mother, no one said a word.

And no one questioned, either, why it had happened only _then_.

* * *

The silver dragon circled the hilltops, riding the air currents, its scales like mirrors in the late afternoon sun. Puck and Lothorien had tracked it for just over an hour before catching sight of it high in the sky. Concealing its location was clearly not its priority; in fact, it was, as Lothorien had grimly observed, almost as if it'd _wanted_ to be seen.

As they drew closer, they were met with a small band of half a dozen dragons - ostensibly a first defense of some kind - but they were overcome by Lothorien, who cut them down with ease as Puck watched, proud and satisfied. During the entire duration of the skirmish, the silver dragon continued its lazy wheeling - if the fight had alerted it to their presence, it didn't seem threatened in the least.

With the bodies of the dead beasts scattered around them, Puck and Lothorien regrouped.

"Here's where I go on alone," Puck declared, matter-of-fact. " _He_ obviously wants a confrontation. Check out his body language - he's practically issuing a challenge! I know because it's exactly the sort of thing _I'd_ do. You stay here. Watch and learn, and on no account are you to approach."

Lothorien spewed forth reasons for why he should accompany Puck, most of them to do with protecting his king, but Puck would have none of it.

"Did you not see what he did to your comrades? This is not a game!"

"Are you saying, Sire, that I lack the skill, or loyalty, to you and the crown?"

"I am saying that you have a wife and two daughters waiting for you to return with your life intact. Don't disappoint them. Besides, someone has to keep an eye on my phone," Puck stubbornly maintained, to Lothorien's unending exasperation. "And that's an order. You _do_ know how to follow orders, don't you, soldier?"

Lothorien all but spat in frustration, "I know all about following orders, Sire, _when_ they make sense and do not endanger my King. And I'm _not_ your soldier; I'm your _captain_."

"Then act like one," Puck snapped, "and obey your superiors as you want _your_ soldiers to obey _you_."

Lothorien clenched his fists but said nothing more as he stared Puck down. Finally, he dropped his gaze.

"If things turn nasty," Puck's tone was incongruously cheery, "head home and give everyone my love. And tell the Prince that the joint of the throne's left armrest makes a rude sound if you push on it hard. It's very useful for distracting people during boring meetings."

Then before Lothorien could even blink at his King's ridiculous speech, Puck was once more in the air, speeding away without even a backward glance.


	14. Chapter Thirteen

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN**

Just before sunrise, Sabrina found herself on the roof.

Sleep had been elusive, forcing her to waste hours in dark imaginings, so she'd eventually given up altogether, gotten dressed and begun wandering around the palace, exploring the hallways and little alcoves decked out in curlicues and gorgeous fretwork. No one had said she couldn't, she rationalized, and besides, it was good sneaking practice. She'd picked route after route and followed them to see where they'd led, and one of them had taken her up a spiral staircase and through a narrow archway which opened up to a sky just beginning to turn pink and gold.

She'd stared, mesmerized, at Faerie as she'd never seen it before - acres of wild and beautiful terrain set against hazy mountains. Spires of smoke and clusters of lights in distant villages and towns hinted at families beginning their day, of entire communities coming to life with the morning sun. Six years ago when she'd visited Faerie with her sister and grandmother, when Puck had still been its prodigal prince, she'd thought it was a meager office fronted by a shady pub and helmed by a rogue that was more mafia godfather than king. She'd never even guessed that it might extend beyond its painted walls, let alone that it could be far bigger than Central Park, or New York City, or any of the mortal facades that concealed it from human eyes.

So she'd never comprehended why Puck had _wanted_ this kingdom - not when she'd never seen any _kingdom_ worth wanting.

But now, looking at this sprawling country of fields and springs and creatures great and small, of postcard skies and the sweet breeze of summer, she finally understood why he'd recreated a version of this home in his room in Ferryport Landing, why he'd returned to it - twice - during his sojourns with the Grimms, why he'd considered it worth fighting for.

This - this land - was _his_. Every blade of grass, each hill and hovel, and all their living things - they were _his_. And he was their _King_.

The magnitude of this realization blew her mind apart. For years, she'd been living two doors away from the _King of Faerie_. She'd taken turns to use a shared bathroom, had thrown soap suds at his head when they'd done dish duty in her grandmother's kitchen. She'd mocked him, called him names, fought over a bag of potato chips and which plotless action flick to watch on their deflated sofa. And she'd dragged him along on rescue missions and detective beats and other questionable excursions at all hours of the day and night, had let him risk his life - his _life_! - for her family, for _her_.

 _She_ \- a nobody, a human teenager, a lowly peasant, as he'd so often and precisely scoffed - hobnobbing with ancient royalty as if they were equals. As if he were but a normal boy, like all the other boys in her life with their normal shortcomings and normal responsibilities, their normal dreams to live out in their normal lifespans.

Then she remembered their date, and the way he'd looked at New York City - with wide eyes and barely-controlled excitement - as he'd held her hand and dutifully followed her on and off the roaring subway and in and out of cafes and delicatessens. For one evening, he hadn't been a king - just a boy on a date with a girl he'd finally learned to be with without tearing apart with words and pranks. And she'd loved him - every bit of him - because he was normal, because he was exactly as she'd wanted him - vulnerable and slightly awkward, whose arms were as much tentative and trembling as his kisses were hungry and passionate.

But then he'd turned back into a king, immortal and powerful, with the weight of his kingdom on his shoulders. And now he was off fighting monsters in some distant place, and might not come back.

She missed him - both the boy she knew and the King she didn't - and she didn't care which of them would be returning to her if she begged and prayed and bargained with the powers of the universe, as long they gave her either; even just _one_.

 _Please_ , she whispered in her mind, _just bring him home_.

Behind her, she heard the smallest of noises and turned to see Mustardseed.

"West is that way," he said by way of greeting.

"Oh. I wasn't. . . I mean. . ." Sabrina said, disoriented, and tried to gather her thoughts.

"It's the direction all the action usually is," Mustardseed was matter-of-fact as he inclined his head accordingly. "That's where the other kingdoms are who seem to always have issues with us - land disputes and trading sanctions and discriminatory marriage agreements. It's very banal, but such are the old ways."

Sabrina blinked. Was she expected to comment?

Mustardseed looked at her, and his gaze was kind. He gestured to the spot beside her. "May I?"

When she nodded, he sat next to her, leaning back on his hands, letting his legs dangle over the parapet as hers were.

"Couldn't sleep?" He asked, looking out at the sky, now so pale she couldn't tell what color it was.

"No."

"Neither could I. And when that happens, this is where I come."

"Oh," Sabrina said, feeling suddenly like a trespasser, "I didn't know anyone would -"

"Please," Mustardseed stopped her, "it's a treat not to be alone with my thoughts. Sometimes they can drive a person mad."

 _Didn't she know it. And how much weightier must his be, if they are filled with the past, present and future of his people?_

"Puck would've been very touched that you came," Mustardseed said when they'd both watched the brightening sky for a few minutes, "even if he'd rather be flayed alive than admit it. And I don't mean only because of your advice in the battle."

Sabrina turned to him. "Have you heard anything?"

Mustardseed shook his head. "This is one of the times when I wish we had those communication channels they use in the wars in your world. All we have is word-of-mouth, and sometimes the couriers whose mouths we depend on never make it back to deliver their messages. As it is, we almost lost those two captains to the dragons."

"I'm sorry that we had to send the dragons here," Sabrina told him. "We -"

Mustardseed waved away her words. "Speak no more of it. It was the best course of action. Here, we have the resources to take them; in your world, it would've been catastrophic. Besides, Puck believes they came for him - for Faerie."

"He thought it was one of Oberon's enemies. Why would dragons want your _kingdom_?"

"Oh, everyone wants our kingdom, for one reason or another. In the past, when Faerie was not linked to your world, we settled our differences without ever involving your people. But we haven't had any wars in the last few centuries since setting up in this city. Until now. Certainly neither Puck nor I has antagonized anyone that we know of -"

"Puck might've," Sabrina pointed out. "He can't help himself."

Mustardseed's lips twitched and he smiled with his eyes. "He can be irritating, but he's not stupid, Sabrina. And he's probably right: this is just one of Father's old enemies who's decided they still want justice after all this time."

"With an army of dragons?"

"Or trolls, or witches, or any of the myriad species of hunting beasts they've managed to control. These just happen to be dragons who can shift, like Puck, and our mother. Although . . . until I saw them with my own eyes, I didn't think any others existed."

"That's right - Titania can turn into a dragon, too," Sabrina remembered. "So . . . can you, too?"

Mustardseed shook his head. "Or any other creature. I can, however, make things grow out of the earth."

"Oh, so like . . . carrots? Or turnips, maybe an apple tree?"

The Prince glanced at her with the expression of a martyr. "Forests. Entire landscapes, on a good day. Somehow, I received the more . . . sylvan aspects of our magical heritage."

Sabrina gaped, impressed and slightly jealous. What she wouldn't give to be able to have some kind of magical power. Or just be around magic without throwing up.

"So now Puck is following whatever leads he can find, hopefully to settle things before they escalate further," Mustardseed returned to the topic at hand. "If he fails, we're stuck with a dungeon full of hundreds of shapeshifting Fae on a murderous mission we still don't know anything about. Who will need to be fed and kept watch over. Not to mention that because dragons usually eat their victims, the hunt could well leave us without a king. So, for a whole host of reasons, let us pray Puck is successful."

"But there's _you_ ," Sabrina reasoned. " _You_ will be King if Puck . . . if anything happens to him. Do you ever think about it? If Puck had never come back to Faerie or if he hadn't survived losing his wings that time, _you'd_ be King today."

Mustardseed didn't even hesitate in his answer. "No, never. Indeed, there was always the possibility - however slim - that Puck might abdicate, but to think of it was also to think of the _other_ reason - that it might have been his death that . . . and I did not let my mind dwell on such circumstances. But I perceive you are asking if I harbored the _ambition_ to be King? No. It has never been my path. I will do what must be done for Faerie, and if that means I must take the throne someday, then so be it. But to _desire_ it . . . no.

He turned to her.

"What about you?"

" _Me_?"

"Have you thought about being Queen?"

Sabrina stared at him, completely flabbergasted. Rule a magical Everafter kingdom, like Titania? When she didn't have an ounce of magic or ambition, didn't even want to set goals for a ragtag army during the war? She wondered if he were mad.

She'd opened her mouth to guffaw when it hit her - what he was implying. About Puck. About _them_.

Her face flushed hot.

"You should," Mustardseed continued, studying her. "If Puck continues to feel the way he does about you, it'll only be a matter of time. And you've certainly proven that you can lead, and change a restless boy for the better. He's never felt like this about anyone else in his life - human or fairy."

He chuckled suddenly. "I will admit: when we first heard the rumors, we - all of us in Faerie - dismissed them as another of his tricks. Yes, even after meeting you years ago when you returned him to us and his healing vessel anointed you. No one believed it. And everyone simply waited for it to blow over. But it never did. Years later, he's _still_ aging. That, at the very least, is significant, and certainly no trick. Much to the dismay of many a hopeful fairy maid in the court who'd long desired to have caught his eye."

Sabrina's brows knitted together as she digested Mustardseed's words. It was strange, she reflected, that when she'd first realized she was growing rather fond of Puck, her first reaction had been horror. After all, he was disgusting to look at and even worse to be in close proximity with. Then, when she'd discovered they were married in some twisted version of the future, the horror had turned into a sense of betrayal, as if she couldn't fathom how she'd have let it happen. But as the years passed and they'd learned to navigate who they were becoming, had finally given a name to the _thing_ between them, she was perplexed - disheartened even - that there was still no end to the barriers that stood in the way.

And his fantastical estate - she'd barely begun to wrap her mind around his authority over an ancient Fae stronghold - was just about the pinnacle; how could a boy be so normal and yet utterly not? And, more importantly, could she choose some parts of him to love and not others?

Mustardseed sighed, distracting her thoughts. "And the day begins. I will see you later, Sabrina."

He rose to leave, and Sabrina found her voice.

"No," She answered his earlier question, "I've never thought about being Queen. Is it a bad thing that I'm not even interested?"

Mustardseed smiled.

"I've always suspected it was why he picked _you_ instead of any of the others; it was all _they'd_ ever wanted."

* * *

Later that day, Sabrina sought out Mustardseed again. One of the nice things about being a highly-anticipated visitor, as Feylinn had called her, was being able to access the royal family at will. And, provided he was not stuck in some high-security conclave, Mustardseed always seemed happy to meet with her, especially after having so dramatically proved that she had things to say that were well worth listening to. His earlier words had haunted her more than she'd cared to admit; he hadn't meant them as a challenge, but something stirred in Sabrina's conscience, and she hadn't been able to silence it.

Now they sat in Puck's office, the same room in which she'd met with Titania years ago when she'd first come to Faerie (although she was still having trouble using the words "Puck" and "office" in the same sentence, and told Mustardseed so).

He laughed, and some of the lines disappeared from around his mouth, turning into new ones around his eyes.

"Yes, miracles never cease, do they?" He noted, continuing to regard her. Sabrina returned the look, turning Mordred's ominous statement over in her mind: _you never know with the Fae, they're tricky and never say anything straight._ And it wasn't only Mordred - Feylinn had said it too, yet Sabrina couldn't reconcile Mustardseed's clear, friendly gaze with the idea that he could be anything but forthright and kind. But then, she'd also watched him deal with enemies, had seen those same blue eyes turn hard as flint when issuing an order that left no room for disobedience. She had a feeling she'd never want to get on his bad side.

"What is it?" He asked her, noticing that she'd been staring and swallowing.

"I want to help," she blurted out.

"You already have," he answered, but not dismissively. "That was quite the military strategy, Sabrina. Turned everything around. It will forever go down in the annals of Faerie history as the most ingenious and efficient technique for subduing flying beasts without killing them."

"Honestly, it was just common sense. I'm surprised no one suggested it earlier - uh. . ." she hesitated, fearing that she'd thoughtlessly insinuated that the entire realm of Faerie were idiots.

Mustardseed was gracious with her slip. "No one dislocates their wings deliberately," he explained, "accidentally, yes; break them, yes; shatter them, yes. Have them completely ripped off, oh, mercy, yes. But to _engineer_ a dislocation? It's harder than you think,. And I do believe that for a dragon it's actually almost impossible, unless it was fighting another beast of comparable size and skill. It was clever to think of it."

"I only thought of it because it happened to Puck," she confessed. "It was a lucky break, no pun intended."

"A reason for everything," he concurred. "So yes, you've already helped more than you know."

"But . . . isn't there anything else I can do? It's hard just waiting. And don't say I should go home because you know I won't. I can't, not knowing what's happening to Puck."

"Well," Mustardseed considered, "there _is_ something. . . and in fact, Puck was thinking of having you take a look at it at some point. Said you had some . . . experience with the matter . . .?"

"What is it?"

"The children."

"What children?"

"The orphans. The ones whose parents were killed in the war."

"Oh. Are there many of them?"

"More than we'd like. Ours is such a bloody history and, under my father, even more so. And war has that inconvenient tendency to break out without warning, doesn't it? I've lost count of how many warriors answered the call of duty - walked out one day and simply never came home. They'd left young children in the care of older children, or - if they were lucky - other families. But there were also those left to fend for themselves, and if it wasn't starvation that took them during the harsh winters, it was disease in the wet springs. Or something else. Puck had always wanted to do something for them, but he was so busy fighting Oberon's wars."

Mustardseed paused. "You look surprised, Sabrina. Did you not imagine that Faerie, too, might have its fair share of forgotten children? It may be magical, but it is a kingdom like any other - full of darkness as well as light."

"No," Sabrina shook her head. "It's not that - I was just . . . I didn't think Puck would care for the _children_."

"He was a forgotten child once, too, you know," Mustardseed reminded her. "The exile was hard on him - hard on all of us - but it opened his eyes to what went on outside the palace walls. He never forgot that, and he would often speak of the kindness your family showed him during those years."

Sabrina's eyes had widened, and Mustardseed caught her look. "Of course, he was careful to make it sound like the Grimms were a group of imbeciles who forced him to take baths and babysit infants and - what was it - oh yes: train idiots to fight monsters not even half as ugly as themselves."

The mirth was clear in Mustardseed's eyes, and Sabrina recognized in him the softer version of Puck's bright humor.

"Well, who would've thought the boy had eyes on anyone other than himself," she commented in wonder.

"I thought _you_ , at least, would've noticed, being one upon whom those eyes constantly fell," he returned.

Sabrina opened her mouth and found that her words had deserted her.

"Um, well, so what did Puck have in mind? For the uh . . . children?" She swiftly changed the subject.

Mustardseed knowingly looked away and reached for his phone, swiping his fingers across the screen as Sabrina gratefully took the chance to gather her flustered thoughts.

"I am aware that modern governments have committees to handle such issues but we're still very traditional, and acutely understaffed," he said regretfully, preoccupied with his phone, "but you see, back in the day, we'd simply turn a blind eye to these . . . problems. Social justice was a matter for the provinces and their overlords. The monarchy, after all, had their hands full of matters of greater importance: dealing with enemy kingdoms, for instance, and fighting wars."

He stopped and looked sheepishly up at her. "It seems that, judging from our current predicament, very little has changed."

Sabrina managed to look sympathetic.

"Anyway," Mustardseed returned his attention to his phone, "let's see . . . some ideas we brainstormed. . . ah, yes. . . rounding up the children from the streets and finding a facility to house them until they can be placed in families. . . funding for rent and food and education . . . " he read the list off the screen. "Also, workers. Not enough workers who know what they're doing."

He looked up and leaned back in his chair. "Did you know we had a rudimentary system once? Your mother, I believe, set it up. It worked in the beginning. . ." He shook his head. "But we lost her - Dame Wintershire. And we never found a replacement."

"Who?"

"Wintershire. The old lady who lived in a shoe."

Sabrina's draw dropped.

"The one who had so many children she didn't know what to do?"

"Oh, they were never her _own_ ," Mustardseed clarified. "She only had two, and they've grown up and left home. But she had this huge house - a shoe given to her by one of the giants in exchange for a babysitting service, so she thought she'd turn it into a daycare. Sadly, she took on far too many children. Parents eventually complained about neglect and so on, and she lost her license as well as the rights to the premises."

"The _shoe_?"

"Yes, it's been sitting empty for years on half an acre of land in Rhode Island. Huge tourist attraction - glamored, of course, to look like a mid-century mansion but it really is just a giant's shoe. It still belongs to her; she just can't run a daycare there under state laws."

"And what happened to Dame. . .er. . ."

"Wintershire? Unemployed. Pity. She really wasn't bad with the children, just overworked, understaffed, and she has boundary issues and a problem saying no, it turned out. She really shouldn't have taken on mortal children as well as the Fae ones she was already caring for."

Wheels were turning in Sabrina's head.

"What about you - and Puck? Who took care of you when you were small? And don't say Titania, because I won't believe you."

"We had a nurse. Why?"

"She any good?"

"Wonderful. Strict like you wouldn't believe. Puck still found ways to finagle all manner of treats out of her, though."

"Why am I not surprised?" Sabrina rolled her eyes. "What about her? Where is she now?"

"In semi-retirement, although she did say she'd come back and care for our children - if Puck or I had any, I mean. I hope she isn't holding her breath."

"There!" Sabrina decided, triumphant. "Buy the shoe from the old lady and move it to Faerie. No need for state laws that way, right? Put your old nurse in charge, and get her all the workers she needs. It'll create more jobs - I seem to remember there was a shortage of jobs here in Faerie not that long ago. Screen everyone to make sure they're not crackpots like Miss Smirt, the social worker Daphne and I had. Offer Dame Whatshername a position, too, so we can utilize her considerable childcare skills under someone else's better leadership."

Mustardseed was silent, listening and slowly nodding.

"And the children?" He asked. "How do we bring them in? We don't even know where they're hiding, just that they are out there, somewhere, starving, raiding . . ."

"Mr Hamelin - the Pied Piper - he can round them up. I went to school with his son. I'll call Wendell and see if he'll help, too."

"What about the paperwork? I understand that there's a lot of red tape involving real estate, and some of it is going to look real fishy to your government. That was what your mother was helping us with long ago, before the war with the Scarlet Hand."

"Mordred! Mordred can help."

"The computer hacker? How?"

"He'll cut through red tape like it was nothing. I'll talk to him."

A lightbulb seemed to go off in Mustardseed's head. "Can he do . . . credit history and social security. . . things, too? It would clear the way for our people to find jobs and buy properties in your world, should they choose to settle there. And attend schools."

"Let's ask," Sabrina said.

Mordred was called, and he sauntered in minutes later, bowing slightly to Mustardseed.

The Prince explained the situation to him, and Mordred's eyes sparkled.

"Legally, I mean," Mustardseed quickly clarified. "We don't want anything shady."

"We don't?" Mordred looked crestfallen.

"No," Sabrina confirmed. "No one wants to go to jail for tax evasion or stuff like that. We just want you to . . . facilitate things."

"Oh, so just . . . expedition, then," Mordred translated. "No creating of bogus identities, tampering with wills, bulking up people's offshore bank accounts. . .?" His eyebrows lifted hopefully.

"No!" Mustardseed and Sabrina shouted together.

"Fine, fine," Mordred's face drooped into an expression of boredom. "Be mediocre if you want. Frankly, I expected something more. . . edgy, considering who your King is."

"He's not here," Mustardseed reminded him. "And even if he were, he wouldn't really get into trouble with the law. He knows better."

Mordred turned to Sabrina with a look of pure incredulity. He tipped his head discreetly toward the Prince. "He doesn't know about the incident at your school, does he?"

"What incident?" Mustardseed's eyes narrowed.

"Long story," Sabrina hastily deflected him. "And it was a complete misunderstanding. Not a big deal at all."

She coughed to drown out Mordred's derisive snort.

"So, Mordred, can you do this?" Mustardseed returned his attention to him.

"Piece o'cake." Mordred grunted, and left.

"Which reminds me," Sabrina said in his wake, "it might be a good idea to have some . . . cultural relations how-to made available for the people of Faerie. It'll help them adjust and assimilate better in the mortal world. And vice versa, although it's less urgent for us to know how to work with you, since the Everafter world is hidden from ours."

Mustardseed nodded emphatically. "I've thought the same. What do you have in mind?"

"Ambassadors," Sabrina announced, feeling excitement build inside her. "I know the perfect person for the job, and she's right here in your palace."

* * *

Up close, the silver dragon was even more magnificent. Unlike the gnarled and wizened creatures Puck had recently faced off against with Sabrina, this one was in the prime of its life, powerful, sleek and agile. Seeing Puck approach, it slowly spiraled downward. Puck stopped and hovered a safe distance away, then dropped to the top of the nearest cliff.

The silver dragon tucked its wings as it landed before Puck, its massive body dwarfing the fairy boy who shielded his eyes and stared defiantly into its glimmering face.

Neither spoke for a few seconds, the boy warily watching the beast which, by contrast, seemed to be unconcerned for its own safety.

"What do you want?" Puck finally spoke.

Still the dragon said nothing, only angling its head slightly in an almost mocking gesture. It observed Puck with intelligent eyes - the way he fidgeted, the ripple of muscle in his arm as he gripped his sword, the fluid dance of consternation and anger on his face. For a moment, a change came over the dragon's expression, almost as if it were amused by what it saw, but it disappeared so quickly that Puck thought he'd imagined it.

"Who are you?" Puck questioned again.

This time the dragon's smile was unmistakeable. To Puck's undying surprise, the silver form shrank before him and in its place stood a Fae warrior in armor so bright it hurt Puck's eyes to look at. He was a full head taller than Puck, and his body was strong but lithe and lean in the way of veteran fairykind accustomed to battle. He had no weapons, and his head was bare except for a thin silver circlet, partially covered by bright gold hair that brushed his cheekbones. But it was his eyes that arrested Puck - green with flecks of gold, they were shrewd and intense as they regarded the boy with keen interest.

Puck felt his mouth fall open. This dragon could shift! His mother had never spoken about her people, but perhaps there were others like her, like him. This male -

He was distracted by a noise and - to speak of the devil - he lifted his eyes to see Titania appearing out of the sky, wings fluttering behind her as she touched down behind the silver warrior, who didn't turn to acknowledge her, keeping his eyes instead on Puck.

"Hello, Niall."

"Titania." His voice was cool and deep. "Glad you could join us."

Titania's eyebrow arched in surprise. Her gaze swept from the male to Puck, whom she'd just noticed, and she paled.

"Son!"

Niall smiled glitteringly. "And now the gang's all here."

* * *

 **A/N: I have a favor to ask, but first, a bit of background about the writing process. These three latest chapters were challenging to edit, because there were several story arcs going on at the same time - Sabrina's (in Faerie), Puck's (with his captains and the dragons) and Titania's (in her homeland). Each of these had pertinent information to be shared at a particular time so as to make sense, or heighten tension or whatever. In my draft, each arc was written linearly from start to finish, and it's only now when formatting chapters for publishing that I'm cutting-and-pasting relevant sections and moving paragraphs around to make this montage of clues. In the last stage of my draft, I actually made a grid/chart (so Type A, I know) to make sure the timelines for all three arcs were consistent i.e. what day was it that Sabrina did what in Faerie and where was Puck at the time? I like to think of it as managing suspense, but really, it was more to keep the timing straight and the plot consistent without backtracking. I played around with various methods, including chunking all the Sabrina sections together, and all the Titania sections together, and then adding headings like "Two days earlier" or writing concurrent events from another arc as a flashback. I didn't like those as much as this "montage" method - I felt the information was better revealed this way, and each chapter then had bits of each arc in it for faster pacing.**

 **What did you guys think about how the different arcs wove in with each other? At the end of this chapter, two of the arcs (Puck's and Titania's) converge, and (one hopes) Sabrina's and Puck's will, too, later. Is this a smoother/more exciting/confusing read as compared to one chapter entirely devoted to each character's arc?**

 **Re: reviews. At the moment of writing this A/N, FF is having technical difficulties and the reviews you guys have submitted are stuck in the nevernever somewhere. I have no doubt that they'll appear in a couple of days, but I haven't been able to read the longer, truncated ones (which made me sad and antsy at the same time). I will respond to them when I can finally access them, okay? Here are the ones I did manage to read:**

 **Octaviawithstarsforeyes (12/15): It's a good guess. That is all I will say. And now he has a name!**

 **Guest (12/15): Fairy names: some have been living in my head for a while already, and some I had to google!**

 **susieq300 (12/18): Yes, silly P. And see- new chapter, so no need to languish over the suspense! Yay!**

 **Guest (12:18): Thank you for the fabulous, comprehensive review (that is at the moment invisible). I am so glad that you liked this story and I was especially excited to read the bits you felt were contrary to the books. Yours was not the only review that addressed it, so be assured that at least one other reviewer missed that Grimm-family-gung-ho-ness, too. The Grimm family is, indeed, taking a back seat as far as frontline action goes, for no reason other than this is not their war. And, in some ways, this is not Sabrina's war, either, although she was thrown into the mix from Chapter One. When writing the first draft, I debated whether or not to give V and H a bigger physical role, and eventually decided to let them contribute to the character development instead. This is, in many ways, still Henry's story as well as Puck's, but not Veronica's, and not Relda's. I can see, though, why and where that would feel strange and different from the ethos of the books, and maybe I can write something into later chapters to redeem that. Thank you for that insight!**


	15. Chapter Fourteen

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN**

Relda's face was the picture of bewilderment as she examined the map spread out before her. By her side, Canis braced one hand against the table and with the other traced a path through the lower left quadrant, over pale desert and mountainous terrain. In silence, Relda fingered the network of Post-it flags and inked lines, shaking her head, her mouth set.

"Are you sure, Canis?" she asked at last.

"I've double-checked with Basil and Henry." His voice was quieter than usual. "The Seeing Eye confirms it. They all lead back to those coordinates."

"And that's the city?"

"It _was_ a city when her father was King. It's just a small community now - hundreds; a thousand, maybe."

"Ah, yes. I remember reading in the journals that there was a terrible massacre centuries ago. It was believed that Oberon was behind it, although it was never proven. And it didn't make sense, not after their marriage alliance. Don't the Fae take those kinds of familial arrangements very seriously?"

Canis shrugged. "Look what they did to the boy - threw him out because he wouldn't marry that underfed usurper of a girl. I don't have much faith in the family ties of the fairy world, or their sense of honor."

"Puck is an exception, surely - and Mustardseed," Relda pointed out.

"Yes, they at least are men of their word," Canis conceded.

"But why would Titania send dragons to Faerie, to her own kingdom?" Relda returned her attention to the map. "That doesn't make any sense, either."

"Well, we don't know that _she_ sent them. Or that she's even responsible, or aware of it. Sabrina says the Prince doesn't even know where she is."

"Then she could as well be in her city as anywhere else." Relda argued. "But you are right - we cannot assume she's behind this attack any more than people could assume Oberon was behind that massacre. What we do know is the flight of dragons originated here -" she poked a finger at Titania's city, "-and that Sabrina believes Puck is on his way there to look for whoever's responsible, maybe persuade them to call off the attack, or whatever this is."

"Assuming he finds anyone there to persuade," Canis grunted, effectively dousing Relda's indomitable optimism. "From what we've heard, they're all locked in Faerie's dungeons, and nobody's talking."

"Yes, Sabrina did say the interrogation failed," Relda's shoulders sagged. "So we're no closer to knowing who sent them. What's clear is that Mustardseed did not find a leader among them - the prisoners are apparently all only soldiers."

"So she - or he - is probably still out there." Canis nodded. "With who knows how many other troops."

"And Puck is alone."

"But with the armies of Faerie at his disposal."

"As we have the Hall of Wonders at ours."

Canis smiled wistfully at Relda, guessing her intentions.

"Old friend," he murmured. "You are not as young as you used to be. Let the younger ones lead. They have technology and all manner of tools and weapons that we don't even know about. You'd already sent the magic carpet when they called for it, remember? If they need anything more, they will ask." He paused, then said soothingly, "And, besides, this is not our fight."

Relda straightened. "I am a Grimm. This is what I do."

"Not when it doesn't concern the mortals, or even the Everafters in your care. Not when it's civil war in the Fae domain. Puck may be yours, but none of the others is. And Titania's people - they don't take kindly to interference."

He laid his hand on her arm and repeated softly, "This is not our war. Not this time."

They both fell silent, bent over the map once more.

Relda shifted. " _But_ \- if - once more, they encroach upon _our_ realm . . ."

Canis' eyes glinted. "Then, by all means, open the Hall of Wonders and unleash hell."

* * *

Sabrina had dinner with Mordred at his workstation, surrounded by humming gadgets and piles of Faerie's finances and census figures. Over a meal of what looked like deep fried calamari but tasted like smoked ham, she cringed as she thumbed through the poorly-managed records.

"I don't know a lot about accounting," she said, holding out a sheet to Mordred, "but even I can recognize a mess when I see it. It's a miracle that Faerie survived its audits! Here - just look!"

"I'll take your word for it," Mordred dismissed her offer, and Sabrina returned her nose to the stacks in dismay. "And FYI, Faerie _hasn't_ been audited . . . ever. Or I should say the auditors the IRS did send left within minutes with their brains wiped and brand new, _very_ cheery dispositions."

Sabrina looked up in horror. "And you know this . . . how?"

"I have my ways," he replied evasively. "Anyway, Faerie knows how to protect itself. Providing for its citizens, however, not so much. During Oberon's reign, there was a surge of deportation and illegal settling in the outlying districts, which made it very difficult to get a handle on population sizes and so on. Consequently, the funds from the treasury got sent to all the wrong places. And let's not even talk about the tax situation - not enough from the rich and too much from the poor, thanks to all these skewed census polls. Puck's got a whopper on his hands, let me tell you. And it's not really even his fault - Oberon didn't know what he was doing when he got off the boat all those years ago and set up in New York City, and everything filtered down to his heir."

"Yeah," Sabrina murmured as she pinched the bridge of her nose. "I remember: he and Titania clung so hard to the old ways that they never learned to adapt to modern living - and their people are suffering for it."

"Well," Mordred said, popping a handful of pseudocalamari into his mouth, "let's see how we can make it all better."

Sabrina chugged her can of soda - some fairy delicacy called _Winter's Elixir_ \- her eyes on Mordred as he chewed and typed, purging records, organizing data, and generally repainting Faerie's entire economical landscape.

"You're awesome, Mordred," she said sincerely.

He paused, and Sabrina watched his neck turn scarlet, even as he gave one of his usual indifferent grunts.

She smiled to herself, feeling a strange warmth in her heart, and said no more.

For the next three hours they worked in companionable silence broken only by the odd comment about formatting a column, or exporting a chunk of data. They ordered more of the strangely addictive food from Faerie's kitchens to keep their energy up, but close to midnight, Sabrina exhaled and scrubbed at her eyes.

"I can't do anymore," she announced. "I feel like we've just built an entire nation from scratch."

"We have," Mordred yawned and stretched, his T-shirt rising above the waistband of his black jeans. "We've done as much as can be done to bring everything to zero. Puck can start building from the ground up now, without all the baggage from his father's term of office."

"You mean 'reign'."

"What?"

"You said 'term of office'," Sabrina informed him. "Like the President. Oberon was _King_ , remember? Last I checked, those were different."

Mordred shook his head in disgust as he looked down at his T-shirt. "Omnipotent but apparently not omniscient," he sighed. "I need a break. Think I'm gonna play a couple rounds of D&D."

Suddenly, a mindless video game sounded like the perfect way to unwind. "Can I play, too?" Sabrina asked him.

Mordred threw her an appraising glance. "You sure about that? I don't go easy on opponents. Especially girl opponents."

Sabrina felt a familiar competitive streak heat her blood. "Bring it, loser."

Mordred's face split into a rare smile as he came to life. "I should warn you -" he said, looking conspiratorial, " - that I'm always a Fae warrior. Never anything else. Free tip: statistically, Fae warriors have the lowest casualty rate in dragon battles. Feel free to be a Fae warrior, too."

Sabrina snorted in disdain. "I'll be a mortal, thanks. Free tip back: mortals have the lowest casualty rate in magic realms. But are you sure you don't want to be a Warlock? Since, you know, you have all that real-life experience?"

"Real life is nothing, man! _I'm_ playing to win. Alright - let the record show that the foolish lass has rejected my grand gesture of generosity -" Mordred waved his hands theatrically," - to her utter detriment. And now, may the best man win."

"Or the best woman," Sabrina retorted.

"No," Mordred looked smug, "the best _man_."

So they played. As Mordred had warned her, he was relentless. But Sabrina, happy to escape from her anxieties for a while, gave as good as she got, and when the screen blipped their final score, Mordred had won by the skin of his teeth. He moaned in abject misery.

"How did that happen? You even beat my third highest score! And avoided the sixth level of purgatory! What cheating tactics did you use? Confess now!"

Sabrina stood and laughed mockingly. " _I_ don't have to resort to cheating! _I_ fight real battles with real monsters in real life! All that strategy -" she pointed triumphantly at the screen, "- is from obliterating real dragons and real trolls and real . . . whatever those things are with the head tentacles! Hah!"

Mordred opened his mouth to protest, but Sabrina forged on, punctuating each point with a finger in his face.

"And you wanna talk real battles versus video games? Video games have _nothing_ on them! You know why? Because you get multiple lives and can collect energy stars to get _even_ more lives! And when you get killed, you just get up again and keep fighting! Even when you've used up all your lives, you can still play again tomorrow! But in a _real_ war, you only get _one_ chance, and there's no such thing as freaking energy stars and if you're killed, you . . ."

Her face crumpled without warning, and she started to cry - great heaving sobs that shook her body and cramped her back into her chair.

For a moment, Mordred looked appalled, wondering how on earth his favorite video game could've reduced this tough chick to a blubbering mess. Then it hit him - she wasn't talking about the game anymore. His expression softened in sympathy.

"He'll come back, you know."

Her sobbing escalated.

"I've seen him fight. He's not easy to kill."

Sabrina inhaled noisily as she lifted her face to the ceiling. "But he _can_ be. He's fighting _dragons_! All by his stupid self! And it's been _days_! What if he - what if he's already -"

She bit her lip, unable to finish her question.

Mordred awkwardly extended a hand and patted her shoulder like he was touching a dead fish.

"Fae warriors have the lowest casualty rate in dragon battles," he repeated as reverently as if it were gospel truth. " _And_ he's their King _and_ the best Fae warrior I've ever seen."

Sabrina looked at Mordred and wiped a hand across her leaking nose. As she swallowed and sniffed, he reflected that she didn't look nearly as awful as some other girls he'd seen crying their eyes out over broken nails or being stood up by a date.

 _Puck sure knows how to pick 'em_ , he thought. _As usual._

Something in Mordred's words seemed to center Sabrina, and she took a deep breath.

"Okay," she said, resolute.

"Good," Mordred replied, sighing in relief that the histrionics were over. "Now get some sleep so that when he does come back, he won't have to see _you_ looking like _you_ died and went to hell."

* * *

Puck was still gaping when his mother turned to the tall warrior - the one she called Niall.

"What is this?" She hissed at him. "I came from the city, and they told me you've called a _sos'kein_. Is this true, Niall? My father swore he would get rid of it! You have no right to do this!"

Puck had no idea what she was talking about.

Niall's smile lingered even as he shook his head. "That was the past, Titania. Your father is gone, along with anything he might have sworn to do, or not do. And good riddance; as long as he kept that useless promise to you, it was an open door for our enemies. We had no credibility! Without the threat of retaliation, or revenge . . . we might as well have surrendered right then."

"You knew what I thought about the _sos'kein_! It's barbaric! It helps no one!"

"You're right. It did not help me. It did not help you. And it did not help our people when your filthy, lawless husband sent his army to massacre us. Or did you forget? Because _we_ never did. Your father did nothing because of that stupid promise he made to you. _You_ weakened your father. You weakened your people. _Our_ people. And as for being barbaric, what of Oberon? Oh, don't tell me no one could prove he did it. Maybe we _aren't_ as civilized as you thought. But neither was Oberon."

"You know why he did it, Niall."

"Oh, of course; everyone knew. I would've done it, too, if it'd been me. But he died before I could return the favor." Niall spat on the dirt. "As long as your father lived, we could do nothing. But now that he's gone, and the appropriate time of mourning is past, it is - as they say - a new era. And I'm simply taking back what's mine."

Puck had been watching this in complete bewilderment and now he finally spoke. "What's going on? Who are you?"

Niall turned to him and asked lazily, "Didn't you get the announcement?"

"What announcement?"

Titania frowned as Niall continued, "The dragon army? The welcome party I sent to Faerie, by way of the mortal world? We might as well make our mark in _all_ the realms, I thought; why leave the feeble mortals out? The more, the merrier! Tell me - have the festivities already begun? I did tell them not to wait. It's always nicer to turn up at a party when everyone's already warmed up, you know. Quite literally, in this case."

" _Welcome_ party?"

"Yes. After I've defeated you here and returned to Faerie as its new King, I thought a welcome party would be in order. I didn't think your court would've had the time to prepare the appropriate fanfare, so I brought my own. Or, in this case, sent it on ahead."

"That's very presumptuous," Puck seethed, thinking less about his throne than of the veritable swarm of dragons descending upon his kingdom, upon Sabrina and Daphne alone in the New York harbor.

"Not presumption, boy; foresight."

Titania glared at Niall. "This was not part of the plan."

"It was always part of the plan, love. Even a child knows there can only be one ruler of any kingdom, and he needs to get rid of the competition."

Puck blinked. _Love?_

"Not Puck." Titania's voice rose in anger. "You know who he is."

"That's right! I'm King!" Puck shouted, barely keeping up. His mind was a swirl of jumbled thoughts as he tried to piece together what he was hearing. He was familiar with battles for kingdoms and thrones - all of history was a collection of such things, after all - but this one had conspiracy and espionage woven into it. What was it his mother had just said - 'not part of the plan'? _What plan_?

Niall ignored him, continuing to address Titania instead.

"The only reason I _haven't_ attacked you earlier is _because_ of Puck. I heard he grew up and I wanted to see what he'd become. But he's always flown under the radar, as it were. Last I heard, he was a welfare case of some old woman living in some town out in the middle of nowhere. Because Oberon threw him out. What kind of father does that?"

Titania didn't reply; neither did Puck. Niall watched them, eyes shifting from one to the other.

"He doesn't know, does he?" Niall's voice was an awful mix of pity and excitement.

"Don't know what?" Puck asked, hating how ignorant he sounded.

"Why Oberon hated you so much?"

Puck fell silent. What answer could anyone give for that kind of pain?

Titania growled, warning in her tone, "Niall, don't. Oberon is gone. He can't hurt Puck anymore."

"Oh, but _I_ can."

" _Don't_."

"Let's see if he's as smart as you say he is. Tell me, boy - you fought some dragons recently, didn't you - a drake and its mate?"

"They were yours?" Puck struggled to follow this new line of questioning, staggering under the sudden comprehension that he and his captains had been slaughtering _Fae_. Like himself. Like his mother.

Niall waved his hand dismissively. "Can't you tell the difference? They had a nest, didn't they? Eggs? They were probably just exiles from their tribe, not shapeshifters. What concerns me is not who they were, but the battle itself. I heard the reports: you had potential. Not surprising, considering your mother trained you; she has some skill. So, you can turn into a dragon."

"And other things," Puck replied warily.

"Yes. Like your mother."

"Yeah, so?"

"Don't engage him, Puck." Titania cut in. "Niall, stop."

"But not like Oberon." Niall pressed.

Puck frowned, caught by surprise, even as Niall continued.

"Or your brother - his son."

Puck opened his mouth to retaliate, then hesitated. Once more, he tried to speak, then swallowed his words, and Titania could see the clues coming together in the narrowing of his eyes, the hardening of his mouth.

Niall threw back his head and laughed.

"Surely you noticed, hatchling, that your brother lacked that ability, that power? Did you never wonder at how different you were?"

Puck threw a haunted look at Titania, standing with her fists clenched in anger and fear. "Mother?"

"Are you going to tell him, love, or shall I?" Niall's voice was mocking as he, too, turned his eyes to Titania.

"Tell me _what_?"

Even though her stance was still that of a proud Fae Queen, it was with the tautness of a bowstring ready to snap. She faced her elder son, her voice brittle.

"Oberon is not your father; Niall is."

Puck's eyes widened, even as the rest of his face pinched in anger. He took a step back, raising his trembling blade toward Niall, shaking his head.

"No. No. You lie! Oberon is my father. He's always . . . he . . ."

"Never wanted you, did he?" Niall pronounced viciously. "Incidentally, when _did_ he find out, Titania? Was it before or after you were heavy with his whelp?"

Puck blanched. Even in his revulsion for this man and everything he'd claimed, he couldn't stop himself asking more, couldn't fight the demented curiosity to uncover the whole story. "Mustardseed? Mustardseed - is he . . .?"

"Your half-brother." Titania whispered, utterly vanquished. "Oberon's only son. Oberon knew about you, Puck; about Niall. He knew that we were betrothed while I was still living with my people, but there was the need for an alliance between our kingdoms. Our king - your grandfather - and Oberon's father agreed on it, and I left my home and married Oberon instead. But Niall and I continued to meet in secret, because we were still in love. And you -"

" - were the happy product of that union," Niall finished with a dramatic flourish. "Imagine that - if not for that cursed alliance, you would've been a nobody in our kingdom - the son of a general - but we would've loved you. Instead, you became a prince under Oberon, and he _hated_ you."

Puck reeled from the news, from hearing his entire history dissolving into lies in just a few cruel seconds. He might not ever have known what it was like to be a child cherished by a family that wanted him, but he _had_ felt love from those outside of it, strangers who welcomed him in spite of all the ways he was not like them. Whatever this male was holding out to him- this was not it.

"If you're offering your love now . . ." he spat, pulled painfully between cynicism and the sorrow of sudden, catastrophic loss.

"Oh, no. The time is past for _love_ ," Niall crossed his arms over his chest, chuckling. "You are grown now. Now we will _fight_ for your kingdom, man to man, as they say."

"Niall," Titania interrupted, "There is no need for that. Oberon is dead. You are lord of your own realm and as long as Puck is King, I am no longer needed in mine. I can be with you. We can be together at last."

Niall sneered. "Oh, we _will_ be together, love. But only after I rid the world of Oberon's spawn - that boy will always be a reminder of a time when you were not all mine."

"Then your war is not with _me_." Puck forced himself to think, to reason, to buy time. He could barely wrap his mind around everything that had been thrown out in the last few minutes, but he recognized the veiled threat. And he feared for Mustardseed, fighting alone against a dragon army.

Niall looked disappointed, as if Puck were a student in his class trying to get out of an assignment. "Am I to believe you're refusing the challenge? And to think I'd waited all this time for some sign that you'd be a worthy opponent. Imagine my delight when I'd heard how you'd fought those dragons! I thought the time was ripe for revolution at last. Yet here you're hesitating! Come now, rest assured that as long as you are King of Faerie - if only in name - my war _is_ with you. And do not take this personally - I am only abiding by the longstanding tradition of vanquishing a king in order to gain his kingdom. After that, there only remains the small matter of disposing of your brother, first to eliminate the next in line for the throne, and second, to wipe out the last of Oberon's seed."

"Or, if you prefer -" He paused, and pretended to consider. "We could deal with your brother _first_ and you after. It makes no difference to me, but surely you are no coward, my _son_?"

Puck visibly winced at the word, and bared his teeth at Niall. Later, when he'd had some time for all this to sink in, he would curse the heavens for giving him not one, but two sires who did not want him any way but dead. And he would weep for a mother that fed him lies and gave him a legacy of trickery as his only birthright. Now, though, he clung to the only truth he knew: his mission to protect his people and defend his kingdom, whether as king or common soldier.

"You shall never have Faerie!" He shook his fist in Niall's face.

"Shan't I? When my own son and his mother are already at its helm and all that's missing is its patriarch to complete the happy family?"

"Niall, stop this game," Titania cut in, stepping between them. "You promised that there would be no war. And yet, there is this -" she motioned between them, "- and the dragons surrounding the mortal city. What is the meaning of it?"

"Ah, but you promised me that we would rule our kingdom, united and glorious, as we were meant to, as we _should_ have, had your fool of a sire not handed you over to that -" he turned and spat once more on the ground.

"And you _shall_ have me beside you as you reign over your realm, lord over the flying beasts and shapeshifters - our own home, our people."

" _My_ realm? It is desolate! We and a few others are all that is left after Oberon marched against us centuries ago, remember?"

Titania's eyes blazed. "It wouldn't be desolate if you hadn't sent all our warriors out to fight this blood war!"

Niall cursed, and roared back, "You and I both know it was desolate long before now. The warriors who followed me would not have made a difference, not when you remember what our kingdom was like before Oberon desecrated it! We have _never_ been able to rebuild our home to what it was. He made sure of it. It is only fitting that in his death he bequeathes _his_ home to me. Everything else is expendable, including his bastard son. You were always so filled with guilt that you were paralyzed, too paralyzed to see what your husband had done. And you gave him a son that will grow up to be just as weak and cowardly as he. I am simply doing the world a favor by taking him out of it. Choose a side now, Titania, as you should have long ago."

Puck had heard enough. He pushed his mother aside and faced the arrogant Fae before him - the father he wanted even less than Oberon. "You can threaten my kingship all you like - and I will gladly defend it -" he seethed, his voice deadly calm, "but you will not speak a word against the life of my brother, or his honor. There is no love lost between Oberon and me - the world knows it - but the best parts of him live on in Mustardseed. He is ten times more worthy of the throne of Faerie than I, and a hundred times more than you could even _hope_ to be."

"Son," Titania gasped, emotion making her voice tremble as much as the hand with which she reached for Puck, but he shook off her hold with an icy glare.

"You chose him!" His voice burned cold.

She met his gaze. "I didn't choose him - or Oberon. Choices are not the luxury of sons or daughters; others older have always had that privilege instead. It is tradition, the way it's always been with our kingdoms. But you and Mustardseed - both my sons - I've _always_ chosen you."

Puck snarled, shutting out her words.

"All right, then," he said, taking a step toward Niall and drawing his sword.

"No!" Titania shouted.

"Stay out of this, Mother," Puck hissed. "This is _tradition_."

Titania withered.

"You would fight me for Faerie?" Puck growled at Niall.

"To the death," Niall's teeth glinted, as he shifted into his shining reptilian form.

Puck watched the transformation, realizing with a sinking heart that the older warrior had chosen the terms of battle to his advantage. But he steeled his mind, and made himself remember what was at stake, what he'd decided long ago was worth fighting for.

"So be it." He tossed his sword aside with a clatter, arched his back and exploded into scales and spikes and rage.

* * *

 **A/N: One of my favorite chapters to write, both for the showdown at the end, and Mordred. I hope Mordred is growing on you guys. Gamers sometimes have a bad rep, but they're awesome! I wanted to humanize Mordred (because I love him) and at the same time draw out more aspects of Sabrina's personality: she's competitive, but not only with Daphne and Puck; she's strong, but sometimes only behind a wall; she's good with people, but often forgets to be nice to them. Pairing her with other guys (Mustardseed and Mordred) was a fun way to bring our her feminine side beyond just being Puck's significant other.**

 **And Puck! And Niall! I plead artistic license with their arc, but really, the whole Oberon-hates-Puck-but-not-Mustardseed thread in the books was just begging for psychoanalysis. And Titania, keeper of secrets and manipulator of identities, was too delicious a possibility not to explore.**

 **Trivia: I know Canis is reformed and that he's called Tobias after his redemption, but I rather like him as Canis, and decided to keep that name instead of Tobias for this story. It's edgier. Sorry if that offends some people!**

 **Also, the earlier paragraph of Relda and Canis was a later addition, in response to a couple of reviews. I thought your comments were valid and insightful: that the Grimm family has always been in on the action; Relda, particularly. I always believed that, too, but initially left her role as an implied one, for pacing purposes. After reading your comments, I put my mental plot points into an actual paragraph. It didn't change the plot or any of the story arcs, but** **I really like what it's added to the foundation and themes. Thank you again, guys, for that insight!**

 **Responses to reviews:**

 **Guest (12/19): Thank you for the feedback re: arc-mixing. Glad you liked the orphan thread, and also the character development. That's my favorite part of a story to build!**

 **susiequeen300 (12/21): Who doesn't love angst, right? Makes the happy endings all the sweeter. And thank you for the feedback re: arcs, too. No, I'm not a famous author writing FF for pleasure. I would LOVE to be a famous author writing FF for pleasure, though. Maybe someday.**

 **silver wombat (12/19): Will PM you later, but thank you for your feedback re: arcs. Yes, imagine reading three chapters all about Sabrina in Faerie. I love unpacking the Fae world as much as anyone, but solid chunks of Fae background and politics might put me in a coma. Am glad other people prefer them broken up into sections, too.**

 **Okay, guys, I don't know if I'll update before the weekend, so if I don't, here are early holiday wishes: have a wonderful Christmas, and safe travels to those whose families are traveling to be together.**


	16. Chapter Fifteen

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN**

 _Swipe._

"Is that all you've got, hatchling? I must say I'm very disappointed."

 _A vicious flick of the tail._

"And here I'd been led to believe you were quite the fighter."

 _A snap of the jaws._

"But I've seen only defense maneuvers; did your mother never teach you to _attack_ , whelp?"

On and on went Niall's taunts against Puck's silence as the younger warrior focused all his energy on avoiding the deadly moves of the older. With growing dismay, he realized that Niall could very well take him if he let his guard down for even the span of a thought. Because while Puck had had years of battle experience, the vast majority of them had been as a fairy with weapons; fighting in his shifted form was altogether very different, especially having only just begun to learn the ways of dragons. Niall, on the other hand, seemed to have all the versatility of either species, and a usurper's bloodthirsty bent, besides.

Unfortunately, this disparity was clear to the older warrior, who seemed to enjoy toying with Puck in what appeared to be a perverse game of Dragon Tag. Darting in and out of range of Puck's defences, Niall knew when to bank so that Puck tumbled gracelessly in his turbulent wake, how deep to slice a muscle to draw a new pulse of blood with every subsequent twitch, where to precisely rip a wing so that the wind slowly and incrementally peeled it open, inch by agonizing inch.

Also, how to maximize pain: gouging away scales and flesh like crimson sod that fell to the earth, he ravaged Puck's natural armor as the younger dragon turned this way and that, baring his back to protect his underbelly, sacrificing his shoulder to save his eyes. Then, upon Puck's weeping wounds, Niall used his flames to excruciating effect, searing and cauterizing all at once, as the sky rained blood and ash all around them. Before long, he'd reduced Puck's body to a grotesque checkerboard of blackened flesh and glistening scarlet on green, while his own silver coat remained pristine, winking in the sun.

"I was looking forward to teaching you so much more," Niall backed away almost patronizingly as Puck gritted his teeth; blood was pooling in one eye, washing his vision red with every blink. "But that's challenging if you were dead. Such a pity you won't concede your kingdom."

"You talk too much," Puck grunted, even as he remembered how often others had said that of himself.

"As do you, it seems. A chip off the old block." Niall's comeback was lightning-fast.

On the ground below, Titania watched with clenched fists, rage and fear sparking off her in a starburst of energy.

Puck blinked rapidly to clear his sight before attacking again, only to have Niall's talons gash him atop his head, drawing more blood, and a hiss.

"And imagine my surprise to hear that you've taken to breeding with human mortals." Contempt, real and sinister, now dripped from the older dragon's voice. "What next - cattle? Rodents? An all-time low, even for you."

Puck drew in a sharp breath, his insides turning to ice as he measured the implications of Niall's words. Misinformed though his proclaimed sire was regarding the details of their relationship, the fact remained that he _knew_ about Sabrina, possibly even knew enough to be a threat to her and her family in ways Puck couldn't bring himself to imagine. The fault was all his - he'd put her life in danger simply by being important to him - and if he couldn't defend her . . .

"She's nothing," he lied. "A mere plaything. I will tire of her before long."

"I've heard different: Titania said you'd _aged_ for this . . . plaything."

A pause - and then Niall drawled with amusement, "You don't even _lie_ well."

Puck snarled and dove for Niall's wing, but the older dragon nimbly dodged his snout and Puck, for what must have been the hundredth time, awkwardly checked his momentum while Niall flapped lazily, watching him in a mockery of honor.

Fury filled Puck anew as he contemplated abandoning the aerial battle and going for the throat of his own mother instead. But Niall had wheeled around and was now heading straight for him, and it seemed to Puck that the conversation was abruptly over.

Niall hit him head-on before he'd even had time to blink. Or maneuver; he was helpless pawn to the momentum of the larger and more powerful dragon, which was about to close its jaws around his throat.

Once again, as he'd done in a similar deadlock in the earlier battle at the nest of the matron, he shifted into skin, and slipped unharmed through talons that suddenly found themselves gripping emptiness.

As he fell, he changed back to scales and spikes and shot upward into the soft belly of the silver dragon, tearing and ripping with everything he had.

He was rewarded with a roar that spewed fire against the sky, and he reveled in the small victory. But it had cost him - allowing himself to come dangerously close to his opponent in order to transfigure and feint was a risky move, especially with an opponent as skilled and shrewd as Niall. And the effort of shifting had drained him of precious energy. He greedily sucked in breaths of air, eyes wildly watching for Niall's countermove.

It came from the side: a mighty whip of the muscled tail whose spikes sliced through his back in a deadly caress, narrowly missing his wings as he rolled out of the way. He bit back a scream as his blood misted the clouds.

Niall banked and returned, no longer speaking, his mocking laughter silenced, his expression as if carved in stone. He'd grown bored of the foreplay; now his appetite was well and truly whetted, and Puck realized with escalating dread how much his sire had been holding back before.

Again, Niall attacked. And again. And again.

Puck had barely time to avoid one move before the next came, always different, relentless and wickedly creative - a staccato blow to the skull that caused his vision to cloud with stars, a glancing slice through already-tattered wings, a momentary embrace that left his hide shredded and stinging, spattering blood against his own face as he twisted right into the crimson spray.

He'd fought dragons before - both as boy and beast - but they'd always been dumb creatures, often old, easily distracted and dependent only on base instinct. His tactics had always been the same: tire them out, drive them to madness, and enjoy the ride. But Niall - keenly intelligent and trained in the art of war and formidable even in his Fae form, was as a dragon practically undefeatable.

Puck's confidence began to falter along with his strength as each move further weakened him, made him careless, clumsy. The thought occurred to him for the first time that he might actually die, right there in the air, torn apart by his own father while his mother watched.

 _What a sick world I live in,_ he reflected with regret.

Above him, watching the tattered wings of his prey buoy his body in jerky spasms, Niall bellowed in sadistic triumph, "It's over, whelp. By the way, when I'm done with you, I will find your breeding mare and raze her entire world to the ground where she stands!"

And something in Puck exploded.

 _For every one of those insects you swat, I'm taking down one hundred._

He narrowed bloodied eyes at Niall, cold fury in his veins. "You. Will. Not."

In answer, Niall wasted a plume of flame in no particular direction, as if to say _I have plenty to spare_. Puck forced himself to think above his boiling rage.

 _Niall is a warrior_ , he reasoned, _he will be expecting the kind of battle warriors fight, the kind won by the stronger arm, the quicker sword, the deadlier thrust. He will not be expecting trickery, or surrender._

 _And what am I,_ he decided with resolve _, if not a trickster?_

He swept his gaze around the landscape, searching the craggy cliffs and barren land, and found what he was looking for.

Slowly, barely discernibly, he angled toward it, drawing the attention of the murderous silver dragon. Puck was a born performer and in his lifetime had entertained millions with just a well-timed slur, a flippant gesture, the sheer power of his colorful personality. But now he focused every ounce of concentration on appearing desperate, playing the part of the flagging but valiant underdog fighting for his life, his kingdom, his family.

A few token strikes, with just the right amount of force as to seem determined, stoic.

Interspersed with the appropriate sounds of suffering - not all of which were put-on - as the retaliating blows came down on him.

Cunningly, he lured the would-be predator, cornering himself as the hapless prey against a fissure between two cliffs, snarling and glancing frantically around him, panic in his eyes, a martyr to the very end.

"You - will - never get - Faerie." There was nothing false about the wheezing in his lungs as he faced off against his father, one foreleg hanging useless from its socket as he cradled it against him as best he could, while his wings let as much air through gaping holes as was keeping him aloft. He backed slowly into the opening of the fissure.

Trapped.

 _Dead end. Nowhere to go. . ._

"Delusional until the last," Niall sneered, "just as Oberon was - to think he could ever have what is _mine_."

Puck feebly snarled back, a victim facing a schoolyard bully, knowing he had no way out.

 _Just a little deeper. I have only a split second before I . . only one chance. . . . if I fail_ _. . ._

Niall advanced, pushing him backward.

 _No. I will not fail. I made a promise. I swore I'd come back._

Niall bared his teeth and lunged, throwing the full weight of his massive body forward -

as Puck folded his wings and _shimmered_. Green darkened to anthracite, scales fused into plates, and his neck shrank to a flat metallic head. His taloned forelegs stretched and curved into armored pincers and three segmented legs burst out along each side of his body. Above his back, the spikes of his serpentine tail shrank and disappeared as it curled overhead, a bulging, translucent arch tipped with a wicked spike -

a spike dripping with poison -

and instead of a broken hatchling, the silver dragon found itself facing a massive scorpion -

\- and he couldn't remaneuver, couldn't stop his body throwing itself toward the once-cornered prey now turned venomous predator.

 _Dead end. Nowhere to go._

Niall's scream of rage and pain ricocheted off the rock as he writhed, impaled in the chest by the force of his own stroke. Without wings, Puck was now kept aloft solely by the body of the silver dragon, which was thrashing in the narrow space, slamming its own body against the cliff walls.

"This," Puck hissed in a voice completely devoid of emotion, "is how I attack. And what kind of father kills his son for a kingdom?"

Niall's eyes rolled wildly in his head as he struggled to free himself, each movement causing incremental damage and exponential pain.

With a mighty pull, Puck yanked his tail out from Niall's chest, and shifted once more into his dragon form. He shuddered from the effort, and braced himself against the sudden cloud of dark spots blooming before his eyes.

"I wouldn't know," he replied to his own question in the same detached tone, "because all the fathers _I've_ known usually die before the sons."

He lifted his good foreleg to slash open Niall's throat.

On the ground, Titania screamed.

And Puck paused, trembling in his rage. For an eternity he hung in the air, wrestling with his past.

"You can die all by yourself," he made his decision, and lowered his foreleg. Turning, he wrapped his tail around Niall's neck and tugged the body out of the fissure, ignoring the gurgled cry that issued from the pierced and swollen silver breast and the way the silver wings flapped out of sync as the venom slowly claimed its victim. He towed the bulk to the next cliff and dropped it unceremoniously onto a shelf of rock that jutted halfway down to the ground. Niall lay still, his body rising and falling in labored breaths.

Far below, Titania sobbed in relief, her hand over her mouth. She took off, flying up to meet them.

Puck collapsed into his Fae form, not caring that he was bare; he was bathed in so much blood anyway.

"My mother taught me quite a bit more than you thought," he said to the gasping beast before him. "I am not like you, after all - you are just a dragon, but _I_ can be _anything_ I want, and I am _still_ King. For my mother's sake, I'm going to let fate decide what to do with you. If you recover - _if_ \- you and Titania can get the heck out of my life. If I ever catch you anywhere near Faerie, I will have you slaughtered."

He looked to see his mother nearing the rock shelf, her pink wings iridescent in the sunlight, and whirled to meet her.

" _Never turn your back, whelp_."

Puck heard the draconic rasp too late as Niall's tail flicked around to knock his legs out from under him.

Puck fell, naked and defenseless, grasping for a sword, or knife - _anything_ \- that wasn't there.

Spikes sank into the the soft flesh on his back and raked furrows as he was dragged backward. He twisted in pain, trying to see what was happening, if there was anything to brace himself against, if there was time to turn into something small or slippery.

He only saw red - the color of his own shredded back and the smear on the glittering chest that grew larger as he slid nearer to it. A shadow fell over him as a heavy silver claw lifted to strike. He didn't even have the time to think _No_.

In that split second, the hills reverberated with Titania's roar as she dove between them, transforming even before she hit the ground. One black taloned foreleg swiped across Niall's face, and then she buried her own tarry snout into the gaping wound in his chest and ripped out his heart.

"Mother!" Puck yelled, but the Queen had stilled, completely composed, whipping her head to the side to hurl the mass of blood and muscle over the edge of the shelf. Seconds later, she was once more Fae, her chin and body streaked crimson.

"Mother!" Puck called again, stunned stupid, the full weight of what she'd done hitting him like an avalanche. "He was your -"

She cut him off, her eyes brimming with sadness. "And _you_ are my _son_. I told you I would _always_ choose you."

* * *

Someone was calling her name.

She was immobile, surrounded by viscous wetness - as if she were trapped in goo - but she could breathe, and there was a dim light coming from somewhere. She was in a cocoon, like the time she'd been poisoned in Faerie and rehabilitated in stasis. She remembered that she'd been safe then. Was she safe now, too? She couldn't tell; her brain seemed to have taken a hike. And as for her ears . . .

"Sabrina!" The voice called again, indistinct through the goo and the heaviness and the layers.

Something warm patted her cheek and her eyes fluttered open. She hadn't realized they'd been closed before.

"Sabrina, wake up!"

She blinked, and recognized Feylinn in the dimness of the room. The fairy girl was sitting beside her, her hand on Sabrina's face. There was no goo, no cocoon. Everything was perfectly dry. She was lying in her bed. It'd only been a dream.

"What? What's going on? Is it Puck?" Sabrina bolted upright, instantly awake, her brain locking onto the one preoccupation of which not even sleep had managed to rob her.

"Come to the council chamber," Feylinn whispered urgently.

"Feylinn!" Sabrina as good as shouted, grabbing the other girl's arm in a vice grip, " _What happened_?"

"The captain is back."

"The captain?"

"Lothorien - the one who'd gone on with His Majesty."

"And Puck? What about Puck?"

Feylinn shook her head, her eyes wide with apprehension.

Sabrina barely registered the time - 3:37 am - glowing on the watch she didn't pause to grab as she stumbled out of her room. Without a word, the two girls practically ran down the hallways to the throne room where Mustardseed was talking to a warrior whom Sabrina recognized as the last of Puck's interns. Slowly, others trickled in - wide-eyed servants, members of the court, and more fighters, alert and fully-dressed as if it were mid-day and not some ungodly hour of the night. She and Feylinn were the only ones in sleeping clothes, although Mustardseed's outfit bore the disheveled look of having been worn longer than it should, and - if he'd been able to - slept in without regard. In spite of his lighthearted air from the day before, Sabrina realized the wait for news of his brother had been more fraught with anxiety than he'd let on. Around them, the chairs - and the throne - were unfilled; no one felt of the mind to sit through this meeting.

Sabrina's nerves were on edge as she listened to the Prince question the warrior - Puck's captain - who looked none the worse for wear. It took all her self-control not to leap on him and demand Puck's whereabouts, but Mustardseed was maddeningly methodical and the captain was made to give his account in excruciatingly slow detail.

The first part of his story corroborated that of the injured soldiers who'd returned two days ago: the long flight and hacking through the defensive wall of dragons, which they'd overcome but which had sufficiently incapacitated his two comrades for Puck to have dismissed them back to Faerie. He and the King had then continued their journey to a series of precipitous cliffs and canyons above which he'd seen a single, massive silver dragon circling in the sky. The King had given him the order to stay concealed and accompany him no further, as he'd intended to meet this dragon alone. In addition, the King had sworn him not to approach on any account and, should his King not return by sunset, he was to journey back to Faerie and convey the news to Prince Mustardseed that the King had failed in his mission and that the Prince must rule in his stead, and avenge him.

Here, the captain paused and Mustardseed, his eyes bloodshot and his mouth set in a grim line, swallowed. He gestured for the soldier to resume.

The captain had then watched from his hiding place behind the rock face, but had heard very little and seen even less. However, there'd been a fight - evidenced by the roars and other sounds of battle that had echoed off the cliffsides. He'd also caught a glimpse of two dragons sporadically veering out into the open sky - one silver and the other a dark green.

"That's His Majesty," Mustardseed said of the latter, and was silent once more, listening. The captain nodded and continued.

After more time, he'd heard a terrible sound, and then another, as if one or both of the beasts was close to death, and then it was quiet once more. He'd waited to see if the King would return, but he did not, and then night fell and he was of two minds: to obey his King's orders and return to Faerie, or approach the battle site to discover its outcome. In the end, he'd chosen neither, and decided instead to wait till morning in case the night brought new developments. However, even before the sun rose, he'd heard the sound of wings and some unseen commotion, and expected to see one of the dragons - the survivor - or (he'd hoped) his King restored to his Fae form. But nothing had appeared, and then it was quiet again, and he'd surmised that the dragon had departed in a direction leading away. So he'd emerged from his hiding place at last to begin his search.

"And?" Mustardseed asked, the single word falling like weights in the room.

"It was empty. There was no one." The captain finished.

Mustardseed frowned, not understanding. "So . . . the silver dragon. . .?"

"Gone, Your Highness. Along with the green."

"Gone? _Both_?"

The captain's gaze dropped to the bundle of his cloak in his arms, and Mustardseed's eyes followed, his body perfectly still.

"I found this, Sire." He unwrapped the bundle and wordlessly offered the contents to Mustardseed.

Every occupant of the room longed to lean forward for a look, but the tension of the moment held them in place and they could only watch Mustardseed's reaction as he hefted the bundle into his arms and peered in.

The Prince's face turned pale, and Sabrina remembered a time when he'd looked the same way, when her family had returned Puck to Faerie because he'd lost his wings and been close to death.

She bolted from where she'd stood, not caring if it meant breaking a thousand rules. She _had_ to know.

And, as if she'd broken the spell over them, everyone else surged forward as well.

She pulled apart the folds of fabric to reveal scales -

\- a plated hide, green as a winter spruce and much larger than she liked. Her mind numb with horror, Sabrina tried to translate what a piece of that size would look like in the skin of a teenage boy.

 _No. He would've healed. Overnight, his magic would've grown it back. This doesn't mean anything._

"He was injured," Mustardseed announced stoically, concurring with her unspoken thoughts, "but this is only a small loss for a dragon, a mere nick, really, and -"

"There was more," the captain put in quietly, "I found more, but I . . . couldn't take them all. This was the smallest."

" _More_? Were they . . .?" Mustardseed asked in a haunted rasp.

"All green, Your Highness; I found none of the silver. Also -"

The captain hesitated, his face utterly distraught, and Sabrina watched the last of Mustardseed's optimism evaporate.

"Perhaps in present company . . ." the captain trailed off under his breath, looking around the room, at the gentry, the ostensibly faint-hearted females and non-warriors among them.

Sabrina's knees buckled and her stomach threatened to turn itself inside out, but she spoke before Mustardseed could.

"What else?" Her whisper echoed in her ears amidst the silence of the room.

"There was a lot of blood," he hedged.

" _What else, Captain_?" Mustardseed's voice was iron.

The warrior swallowed, then said miserably, "Viscera."

Sabrina stumbled backward, the world spinning around her. She could barely register what she'd heard.

 _No. No. Nononononono._

She turned to Mustardseed - surely he didn't believe this soldier's preposterous claim? Surely he knew his brother better than that, had more faith in his ability on the battlefield? She'd seen Puck fight all kinds of monsters and he was _amazing_ and _nothing_ could best him. Any moment now, the Prince would shake his head and agree: _no, it was not possible, the evidence was circumstantial, His Majesty is immortal. Invincible._

 _Immortal._

Sabrina blinked, waiting.

 _Invincible._

But Mustardseed remained stock-still, his arms full of his brother's transfigured remains, his eyes squeezed tightly shut.

With a snarl, Sabrina threw herself at the captain, pounding him with her fists. "You're lying! You _didn't_ see! You _didn't_ see! You just _thought_ you saw! And why didn't you help? _I_ would've helped! _I_ would _never_ have hung back to wait!"

"I . . . was following orders -" The captain's defense sounded uncertain, as if it had just occurred to him that _not_ obeying might actually have been an option.

"I would've _disobeyed_ every freaking stupid order and _helped_! I disobey him all. The. Time!" Sabrina bit out each word, not caring that every eye was on her as she flaunted her blatant disregard for Puck's authority. "And he's stayed _alive_ because of it! Damn you! What have you done?!"

Feylinn wrapped her arms around her and drew her back, while Sabrina struggled, then turned her wrath on the Fae girl herself.

"Are you sure, Captain?" Feylinn barked, trying to deflect Sabrina's hands.

He opened his mouth and paused, trying to find the words. "The lady is right - I didn't see the killing blow. I only heard . . . I brought back what I found. Perhaps His Majesty escaped . . . somehow, and perhaps it wasn't his blood and . . . that I found."

"Then why hasn't he returned - if he _is_ alive? Or, if he were too weak from injuries, why didn't you find him _there_?" Feylinn asked the questions on everyone's minds. "Or the other dragon?"

Only damning silence answered her, broken by the stifled sob of one of the courtiers. The captain lowered his head, his shoulders trembling, even as Mustardseed lifted own his face to the gilded ceilings of Faerie's throne room and exhaled loudly.

"Thank you, Captain," he said weakly, when he'd lowered his brimming gaze to them once more, "for your news. And for your courage."

The captain refused to meet his eyes.

"Your Highness," he said, and went down on one knee before Mustardseed. "No. The lady has spoken true. I should have helped. I - I failed -"

Mustardseed cradled the hide in one arm and laid his free hand on his captain's shoulder. "You obeyed the command of your King. And you were able to return to us with this news because of it." His voice softened with compassion. "These were dragons, Lothorien; not Fae, not men. Greater warriors than you or I have lost their lives in an instant against the least of them. There is no shame; none at all."

"But sire - if I had been more experienced. . . if it had been a better warrior who'd gone -"

 _If you hadn't been a stupid intern_ , the words threatened to rip from Sabrina's throat, but for Feylinn's arms around her shoulders, squeezing, comforting, restraining.

"If it had been anyone else, he would still have received the same order, and he would have obeyed it, just as you did. It was a tragic battle, and we did all we could." Mustardseed told him firmly. " _All_ we could. And -" his voice broke, "as I am now . . . ruler of Faerie, I give you this order: rise, Captain."

Lothorien shook his head, but he rose, obeying his new King just as he had the one before him.

'Your Majesty," he said and - as if just remembering something - held out small black object to Mustardseed. "His Majesty . . . gave this to me for safekeeping . . . while he did battle."

Mustardseed took it and stared at it. It was Puck's cellphone.

Everyone frowned in confusion, but Sabrina knew why he'd given it to his captain: so he wouldn't lose it with his clothes in the change. This, more than anything else, brought a new spasm of tears to her eyes. She wept, and didn't care who was watching.

Mustardseed turned it over almost lovingly in his hand before pocketing it. He muttered a strangled "thank you" and dismissed Lothorien. Then he turned and left the room without another word.

The other occupants in the room, as if suddenly released from a spell, came to life in a murmuring crescendo of shock and sorrow. But Sabrina flung off Feylinn's arms and fled, disbelief and panic coalescing into pure rage as she ran, her only thought to get as far away as she could, and she didn't care what, or how, or where.

* * *

Mordred found her on the roof two hours later, a fetal huddle against a pillar. Exhausted, with her face blotchy from crying, she'd fallen into a twitchy, uneasy semiconsciousness and didn't open her eyes even when Mordred walked up and stood not a foot from her curled body.

Dark memories awakened in his mind as he watched her, still dressed in her nightclothes, alone and powerless in her grief. He felt inexplicably moved to help this headstrong human - it'd be a shame for something as trivial as hypothermia to claim anyone who played as mean a round of D&D as she, he told himself. Maybe he should say something comforting, or transport her back down to the rooms where it was warm and she could sleep off the night's events . Then he frowned as he considered his own awkwardness; he had never been good with words or gestures - or even kindness.

But perhaps with magic. . .

He hadn't used his magic - _really_ used it - in a while, not since the war. Then, he'd employed it to great effect, letting it storm out of him and annihilate everything in its path. It'd felt good to be powerful, to decide the fates of others, to win battles. But, he recalled with a remnant of his grief, it hadn't been enough to save them all, and he'd discovered that even wielding death himself, he was impotent to stop it by another's hand, or call back to life those it'd already claimed. The knowledge - as well as his own incapacity - had crushed him, ruined magic altogether for him. From that day on, he'd locked his power inside himself, tapping cautiously into it only for his work, using it to help him hack and search and code beyond the boundaries of even his innate technological dexterity.

Now here was someone else crippled by searing loss. His magic hadn't saved the boy for her, but perhaps it could still give her the peace she needed right then.

He held his breath to steady himself, then reached a tentative hand toward Sabrina. With the gentlest touch, he brushed his fingers across her forehead, pulling out of himself the faintest tendril of his power to conjure a deep and dreamless sleep, just as he'd done for his own mother when she'd been too broken with sorrow to do it for herself.

Then, as Sabrina's body sagged into sweet slumber, he weaved his fingers into one another and muttered his incantation, liquid words that knit together forgetfulness and surrender and being lost in dark, bottomless places. And when he drew his hands apart once more, a blanket of the softest ebony wool fell quietly from them onto the sleeping girl and draped her as softly as the night that was already fading into day.

* * *

 **A/N: MORDRED. I want him on my team. _Forever_. Took longer than I thought to edit this chapter, because wasn't sure whether to sequence Lothorien's return before the fight between Niall and Puck, or the other way around. Advantages and disadvantages either way, but I finally decided on this eventual sequence. Hope it works.**

 **BUT. On to the guest reviews now!**

 **Guest (12/22): I'm so glad you like Mordred and Sabrina together. Me too! And I hope you like Sabrina and Mustardseed together also, because that's coming up. Sigh.**

 **CharlotteWrights: here is the next chapter - hope you liked it!**


	17. Chapter Sixteen

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN**

The new day was one of farewells.

The court of Faerie was heavy with sorrow as the news of the King's death was added to the many losses of the earlier days. Mustardseed had not slept, and it showed as he stood before his people on the banks of the Cein, the city's main river along whose banks the palace stood. On the damp ground before him were wooden biers decorated with flowers and bearing the bodies of the slain. A priestess, assisted by Feylinn, conducted a solemn ceremony to honor the dead and prepare them for the pilgrimage to the afterlife, after which the wooden platforms were launched on the water, and drifted away on the river currents.

A bier of golden oak, empty except for a small bundle draped with a golden shroud and adorned with white roses, was left for last. Mustardseed's hand shook as he pushed it away from the bank.

Sabrina was not present. She'd remained on the roof when dawn had broken, staring out at the sky, and when Feylinn had come to invite her to the honoring ceremony, had only said, "Tell Mustardseed I'm sorry, but I don't think I can go." Feylinn had then handed her a small object, explaining, "His Majesty thought you might decline, and understands. He also said to give you this. He thinks you'd have better use for it than he."

It was Puck's phone.

Sabrina had closed her fingers tightly around it and turned away.

When she'd finally been able to look at it, she'd found that while she was still listed in his contacts as "Grimm", Puck had saved every text she'd ever sent him, along with the selfie they'd taken outside the hot dog shop on their one date.

She would've cried if she'd had the tears.

* * *

She didn't know what time it was when she finally returned to her room, thankful that no one had stopped her along to way to ask after her. She didn't think she could've handled kindness right then, not when rage felt like sorrow, and sorrow like pain.

She put Puck's phone on her nightstand and picked up her own. With complete disinterest, she looked at the screen and saw that she'd missed six calls from home. She exhaled, feeling whatever remaining strength ebb from her, and dialed.

"We heard, sweetheart; come home," her father said gently.

"Okay," she breathed, and just barely registered how easy it was to say it, to agree to leave Faerie. To leave . . . _him_.

"Do you want Mom and me to come get you?"

"No." It was a lie. There was nothing she wanted more right then than her father's arms and her mother's ability to fix anything, but she needed to be strong, to not fall apart when everyone else around her was already breaking. So she told them she had some things to do there, and then she'd take the subway home. That much, at least, was true. It felt right to keep working on the broken ship that was the Kingdom of Faerie, to finish what she'd come for; in the face of so much dying, it was all she could do for the sake of the living.

And she wouldn't quit just because it was Mustardseed and not Puck that was at its helm, steering it into a bright and hopeful future. She was a Grimm and this was what she did. Especially when she felt that she couldn't.

* * *

She found Mordred in his room, still focused on the screen, busting firewalls. He looked up when she entered and let his eyes track her to the chair into which she collapsed.

He waited for her to speak, but her gaze remained downcast, almost as if she'd lost the nerve to explain why she'd decided to end her isolation and come visit him.

So he handed her the gaming console, although the question in his eyes was one of permission, not challenge.

He saw her bite her lip, and then she accepted it from his hands. Without a word, she scooted her chair up to the screen and chose her avatar - Cyclops. He didn't even blink as he scrolled past Fae Warrior for the first time since he couldn't remember when and picked Troll Chieftain.

Then they played, neither speaking, and she lost herself in the battles, the carnage, the senseless slaughter. When they came face-to-face in the castle ruins, she slew him without mercy, and he fell, his head rolling out of sight.

"Ouch," he said - the first and only human sound since she'd entered the room.

Sabrina slumped back and tossed the console onto the table.

"Don't think I don't know what you did, LeFay," she said at last, in a voice that Mordred noticed was hoarser than he'd remembered.

He shot her a quizzical look, recalling the blanket: his one floundering act of kindness.

She returned an accusatory glance. "You dropped your shields. You let me win."

He exhaled in relief, but was careful to cloak it in disdain.

"I underestimated you because you only had one eye and, therefore, inferior depth perception," he replied far too innocently. "Foolish of me. I will not make that mistake again."

She glared at him, seeing easily through the lie. She wanted to hate him for pitying her, for implying she needed saving, but he glanced away with an uncomfortable, almost guilty expression, and somewhere in the darkness of her soul, she felt a very small spark. _Grace_ , she reminded herself, _has many faces. And God knows we need all of them now._

Eyes closed, she breathed deeply, willing the spark to catch, to not get snuffed out.

"Well," she announced, looking to him once more. "Those orphans aren't going to rescue themselves. We should finish the migration of the Shoe. Did the paperwork clear?"

"Easily," Mordred replied, without even a trace of smugness. "I can get it situated by end of the week. When does Hamelin want to move the kids?"

Sabrina filled him in, and they worked through issue after issue, patching yet another hole in a fragile land that had barely begun to heal before the next breach, and the next.

* * *

Then it was time to say goodbye to Mustardseed.

She waited till she'd done all she could with Mordred so that when she met with the new King, she'd have something to present that might bring him a little comfort after all that he'd lost. It made her angry: the idea that someone was grieving harder, whose pain might be worse, could possibly love Puck more than she in that moment, but Mustardseed was his family in ways she wasn't, and had spent centuries of his life with him where she'd had mere years. It was wretchedly unfair, she thought, that even when her heart was so broken, she was still looking out for Mustardseed and his kingdom. She'd told herself she was continuing the work Puck had begun and in which he'd believed so strongly, that in preserving his legacy, he might be remembered forever.

And not just because she was still refusing to accept that he was gone.

"If he came back and found us slacking off," she'd told Mordred while they'd been working and she'd caught him watching her, "I don't want to have to deal with his stupid smug face."

Mordred had agreed - a little too quickly - and said nothing when Sabrina had bitten her lip and savagely dug her fists into her eye sockets.

Now she stood before Mustardseed in his private rooms. He was haggard but composed.

"Are you alright?" He asked her, and Sabrina resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

"I was about to ask the same of you," she told him.

"He wouldn't have wanted us falling apart," he answered. "But - damn him - he was always so foolhardy! If he'd only agreed to take the whole contingent, not just the three of them! I should've forced him to. Just like I should've stopped Father years ago when he cast him out of Faerie. I was weak."

Sabrina gawked, unaccustomed to this side of Mustardseed, no longer the stronger brother, the one who always had it all together.

She laid her hand on his arm. "Sire," she began, and allowed herself a second to marvel at how easily the courtly title rolled off her own tongue, "none of us could've stopped him once he'd decided something. You know how stubborn he is."

Mustardseed didn't respond for a while and when he did, all he said was, "And that's exactly why I should've tried to."

Sabrina waited in the silence that followed. It occurred to her that if Puck had been there with them in the room, they'd have taken turns to punch him, hard, for doing this to them.

She cleared her throat, and Mustardseed turned to look at her.

"I need to head home soon, but Mordred and I wanted to finish what we'd started this weekend. Well . . . finish as much as we could, I mean."

Mustardseed took the sheaf of papers from her and silently paged through them. When he looked up, his face had softened.

"Thank you. Puck would've. . . this would've made him very happy."

"I'll come back when I can to follow up," Sabrina added, even though she didn't know if she'd have the strength to return to a Faerie without Puck in it. "There's still stuff to do. Some of it I can handle from home . . . I have my phone, and I've saved the contacts -"

Mustardseed stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. "Do not promise now," he said. "I don't expect it, and no one, least of all I, will hold it against you if you change your mind, if you move on and choose to leave this all behind. You owe us nothing, and we are already grateful for what you _have_ done."

Sabrina opened her mouth to retort in outrage that he'd think so lowly of her, but Mustardseed went on. "I don't mean that I wouldn't appreciate it. I only mean that you should take your time to grieve also. I know you loved him. And I know he loved you."

What little control she'd pulled together for this meeting broke and she curled in on herself, not noticing when Mustardseed stepped forward and drew her close to him.

"I hate him," she snarled, "for leaving."

"So do I," he murmured, sounding very tired. "And I hate my mother, too, for falling off the face of the earth at a time like this. And my father, for making a mess of Faerie. And . . . myself, for being what's left."

Sabrina pulled away in surprise.

"Stop that," she blurted out before she could censor her mouth. "None of those was your fault. And you are going to be an awesome King. When I first met you, I wondered how on earth you and Puck could be brothers because you were so responsible and . . . _with it_ while he was just this frivolous, crazy . . . _brat_. You're just grieving now, but it doesn't mean you're useless!"

"You misunderstand," he returned, eyes hardening, and she felt his arms stiffen around her. "I know what must be done so that Faerie stays strong. But I -" he inhaled violently, "Curse it all, I _miss_ him. I am not _afraid_ of ruling Faerie. I just never thought I'd rule it _alone_."

Sabrina's mouth fell open.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, red-faced. "I'm so -"

"No. There's nothing to apologize for. We're both -" he sighed, letting his arms fall as he stepped away. "We're both grieving, and thus we speak carelessly. And you're right - I still am that very responsible Prince you first met. And must continue to be, for Faerie's sake."

There was no sadness as he said this, no hint of the martyr he could have chosen to be, which somehow made Sabrina ache even more for him. But he swallowed and continued, "I've sent a team out to the battle site to retrieve anything they can find. Hopefully, that includes . . . his body . . . to bring it home so we can give him a proper farewell. And I've sent more messengers to search for my mother and tell her the news. She shouldn't miss this but we can't be waiting on her forever."

"Will you tell me -?" Sabrina faltered.

"Yes. I will send word when they've found him."

Sabrina forced down the lump in her throat as they stood once more King and commoner, the tender intimacy of their earlier moment gone as if it had never happened. She turned to go, half-expecting Mustardseed to call her back with a kind word - a remnant of his earlier vulnerability - but he remained silent, once more impurtabable, looking westward through the open window.

* * *

Too soon it came, barely over an hour later -

\- a text on her phone, just two words from Mustardseed: _He's home_.

* * *

 **A/N: Short chapter today, but felt like a good place to stop. I was so happy that you guys liked Mordred! I hope Mustardseed's growing on you, too. Part of his charm, I think, lies in the bond he has with Puck. Especially since they had to grow up together in a family that was a bit weird and they really only had each other.**

 **Reviews:**

 **Guest (12/30): YES. Very glad you like Mordred. And who wouldn't want to be friends with a warlock who can blast through the internet?**

 **Cupcakesparkleglitter: Thank you! I aim for feels.**

 **Chiyokira: Thank you! Re: Sabrina's grief - oh dear, it gets worse in this chapter! But Mordred+Sabrina won't happen, fear not. He's not that way for her, nor she him. He can barely follow an emotion to its conclusion, but he tries. And that's why I love him.**

 **TheWorldDoesn'tStop: Yes, Titania. There's a later chapter about her, and she vents about just that - picking a side. And also about the kind of mother she's been.**


	18. Chapter Seventeen

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN**

Over thunderclouds which eclipsed the rising sun, two dragons flew west. Between them hung the glittering body of a third, its lifeless tail cutting the boiling sky like a scythe through ash -

\- a family returning home.

Both mother and son were silent; they had not spoken beyond the phatic communication of barest necessity the night before as the older had laid her hands on the broken body of the younger and, while he slept, initiated the powerful process of healing. When morning had come and he'd woken stiff but refreshed, they'd found the bleeding staunched by his mother's magic and his own, and the worst of the pain had gone. His strength had also returned, and so they took to the skies.

Injuries knit slowly into scars as they journeyed, although there were hidden wounds that all the magic in their immortal blood could never heal; such were the marks of loss and betrayal, and secrets that consumed both the keepers and the ones who uncovered them.

Before they were halfway to the towering granite cliffs, the sky opened a deluge, but they ascended past and stayed dry. Overhead, the sun cast their shadows on the undulating carpet of cloud beneath and were it not for the rumble of thunder and the jagged lightning sparking below, it would've been an unexciting - and interminable - traverse.

Toward evening, the storm pattered away to nothing and the clouds dissolved into an insubstantial mist through which they could see the burnt ochre and sienna of plains and the steely grey of mountain peaks.

Still they flew, untiring.

At last, Titania, who was navigating, sank through the mist and emerged over a deep green valley nestled among steep mountains. The thick trees gave way to a central plain, and it was toward this that they descended to land. Once on the ground, Puck took in the sight around him: lush foliage - as if the valley had somehow hoarded the rain that had leached away from all the other arid landforms in the region - surrounded by rising cliffs, like the spires of a giant's crown. He was in the middle of a large square clearing around which were fire pits and scattered metal structures that reminded him of the training set-up of a war camp. All around the square were sod huts laid out in concentric rings that spread toward the base of the hills.

And what hills! Set into the face of the hills themselves were hundreds upon hundreds of doors and windows opening into homes carved out of the rock, and archways painted in every color of the rainbow and framed by equally gay awnings and curtains that fluttered in the breeze. There were no corridors or steps that ran between the doors, but wild flowers and trailing green sat on rocky ledges like a festival of terraces rising up the hillsides. From these kaleidoscopic doors people were emerging to see what the commotion was.

No, not people - _Fae_ ; young and old and every age in between. Families. A community. A _kingdom._

They leaped from the doorways and archways and terraces, tens and hundreds of feet down to the ground.

As they fell, they transformed with an explosion of color into dragons of all sizes - hatchlings and juveniles and full-grown adults - filling the air with the sound of wings and the glint of scales catching the sun. Puck stared open-mouthed, letting their movements carry his eyes up and down the side of the cliffs in a kinetic display of life and breathtaking majesty. It was the most amazing thing he had ever seen.

"How ironic," he thought, feeling his heart twitch, "I would've loved it here."

Titania nudged him beyond the huts, away from the crowd that was now gathering around the bulk of Niall's carcass lying in the main square. Once hidden from sight, she shifted back into her Fae form and it was only then that Puck realized he, too, was still a beast. He hesitated, wondering what to do - even if he'd saved his old clothes, they'd haven been ripped and bloodied from the fight.

"There is a stream," his mother told him quietly, "where the warriors wash after a battle so they don't bring the blood of their enemies into their homes. I will attend to the people, explain what happened - and then I will come to you. Go."

Puck let the sound of running water guide him to the stream. There, once more in his skin, he sat in the swift-flowing current and watched the water turn red as his own blood leached away and mixed with his father's, washing him clean. His mind still reeled from what he'd seen: the city of shapeshifters just like him, a part of his mother's world he never knew. Did he have family here? Cousins? Grandparents? More half-siblings?

 _This could've been my home_ , he smiled ruefully at the thought, immersing himself fully underwater. _What a different life I would've led. I bet they don't have internet here. Or hot dogs_.

 _Or a feisty death-magnet by the name of Sabrina Grimm._

His smile widened even as his heart ached. _He's dead. He can't hunt her down and hurt her. I killed him._

 _My father._

 _Is Not Oberon._

 _Who never loved me._

He blew out a stream of fizzy bubbles and felt them rise up past his face. He'd expected to feel anger, or betrayal, or even sadness, but he felt only hollow and perhaps a little lost. And there was also a part of him that felt nothing at all.

Completely submerged, he didn't hear Titania call his name until her garments swirled into view above the surface. Quickly, he sat up and shook the water from his hair. Titania stepped back from the spray and handed him a rough woven blanket. He rose in a graceful movement and wrapped himself in it, then followed her back to the main square.

The huge carcass was gone, as were most of the curious onlookers.

"I told them the truth," Titania read his unasked question as they walked past the square and through the concentric rings of huts. "I said he made me choose between him and our son, and I chose our son. They saw his wound and I told them that from now on, the sos'kein - that's the victory ceremony in which we consume our vanquished enemies - is outlawed. I will write it out of our history forever. It is my right - since my father was their king and I am his sole heir, I am now their queen."

She turned to him. "And you'd be _my_ heir - you and Mustardseed. But especially you, because you are Niall's."

Puck opened his mouth to reject her words, but she put her hand on his arm. "You do not have to rule here," she told him. "Your place is in Faerie."

He shook his head. "Mustardseed is King of Faerie," he countered.

"I do not believe that is his desire. But if it is, he will still need you there. Don't speak of it now, however, not until you have seen him and told him the truth."

"Until _I've_ seen him?" Puck echoed her, feeling the bite of anger. "Until _I've_ told him the truth? What about you? This was _your_ making!"

"Yes, it was," Titania agreed without hesitation. "And I would return with you if I could be sure my people -" she waved her hand to the surrounding hills and its hundreds of homes, "- do not retaliate. When I have established my authority here, I will come home, and bear the consequences for what I've done."

" _Home_?" Puck's voice was full of scorn. "Do you still call Faerie home? I could've sworn your heart lies _here_."

Titania leveled her gaze at him. "I call two places home, and my heart lies divided between them. It always has. You feel that too, don't you - living with one foot in our world and the other in _hers_?"

Puck exploded in anger. "Don't speak of her! You don't have the right to speak of her!"

Titania did not respond, and said no more as they stopped at the door of one of the huts.

"This is . . . was Niall's," Titania said. "There are clothes here you could have."

"Convenient that he won't need them anymore," Puck noted dryly, and ducked through the doorway. He pulled the blanket more tightly around himself before looking around the house that used to be his father's. At the simple furnishings and art that adorned the walls, the leather boots beside the door, the fife above the hearth, the pile of half-finished homemade explosives on a tray by the window. The chair with the throw rug. The bed that his mother had shared.

He savagely dismissed the thought.

Titania was rummaging in a cupboard, so he turned his attention to a collection of weapons lying on a table. They were of fine workmanship and looked well-cared for - not surprising, given Niall's occupation.

"He was an outstanding swordsman, and a tinkerer," Titania remarked, and Puck swiveled to see her watching him, a stack of clothes in her arms. "You are like him in many ways."

The idea left a strange taste in his mouth, and he suddenly wanted to leave, didn't want to touch anything that had been in this house.

Titania placed the clothes on the table beside the weapons. "All this is yours, if you want it. The sword, for instance - it was his father's and has been in the family for generations. It is a beautiful weapon, and fit for a King."

Puck let her words drift in and out of his head. He cast his gaze elsewhere, and caught sight of a group of young adult males on a cliff shifting between their Fae and dragon forms. The sound of raucous laughter carried on the air as they goaded each other in what appeared to be a contest of speed. One by one, they morphed, metallic scales melding seamlessly into skin and fabric and back again as they challenged each other in near-vertical dives and elaborate aerial acrobatics. None of them, Puck noted, seemed to have a problem with their clothes disappearing.

"I never could do that," Puck said in envy. "With clothes, that is."

"Can't you?" Titania asked, shocked.

Puck shook his head. "I always thought that was how it was - that maybe you could and I just couldn't. I mean, back home . . . in Faerie, there were only ever just the two of us who could shift. I didn't know there were so many."

Something in Titania's face changed; for just for a moment, a shadow had passed over it.

"Our children learn to shift in just their skin, because it is easier," she revealed softly, as if from far away. "It's only when they come of age that they are taught to change in their coverings as well. It is more difficult and, more than just a skill to be learned, it is an important ritual - it signifies that one has left childhood behind and become an adult. Usually, it is the responsibility of the parents to impart it, but any adult will teach an orphan, so that no hatchling is ever left without."

"Without," Puck repeated, and Titania heard bitterness in the single word. She was relieved that she'd left the rest of her explanation unspoken - that disobedient children were sometimes threatened with having this skill withheld from them if they didn't behave, so as to endure the shame of mockery from others: _you are a baby, you are disgraced, you are unloved._

She also didn't clarify that it was never more than just a threat; no parent would _ever_ dream of actually withholding that from their child.

"I took it for granted that you would always stay a boy," she said instead, as if to appease her own searing guilt.

Puck looked away. "Yeah, well."

Titania faltered, clenching her first before desperately reaching out as much with her fingers as her heart.

"I'm sorry, my son, that you had to grow up without me."

A snort of derision. "There was no _'had to'_."

"If I'd known, I would have taught you."

"I'll just add it to the list of all your other secrets."

She acknowledged the snub; she knew it was deserved.

"I'm sorry," Titania said again, more softly. "I'm sorry for everything."

For a long time, Puck didn't answer, and Titania wisely let the silence sit between them, resisting the urge to fill it with cruel excuses and shallow rationalizing. When he finally spoke again, his own voice was quiet.

"It wasn't that Oberon wasn't my father." He did not look at her. "I couldn't care less that you betrayed him, or even that you took a lover; you can't help loving who you love -"

He paused, as if something had only just occurred to him. Whatever it was, it took the edge off his tone, made him glance at his mother with a little less of his earlier judgement.

"Anyway," he brushed the mood away like mere cobwebs, "I always thought the affairs of the heart were pointless. But that you kept it a _secret_. . . all this time . . . that for centuries, for my _entire life_ , you let me believe a lie . . ."

He finally turned entirely to stare his mother full in the face. "Mustardseed - is he . . .?"

"He's Oberon's," Titania affirmed.

"And did you even _care_ for Oberon? Or he for you?"

His questions caught her off-guard. She wondered why he'd wanted to know: hadn't he just declared his disdain for matters of the heart? Then the realization hit her: the question - and its answer - was not for him, but for his _brother_.

"Eventually," she admitted. "He had many flaws, but his heart was good. And he wanted the best for his kingdom, truly. I still miss him. I don't expect you to believe me, but I do."

"Mustardseed is the true King of Faerie," Puck said flatly. "I've stolen the throne from him. It should've been his all along. And you let me cheat him of it all these years."

"You are the elder, and you are still _my_ son."

"But I am not Oberon's!" Puck turned on her, livid. "I'm nobody's!"

Titania flinched.

"You are _my_ son," she repeated, and her voice shook, "and _I_ am _not_ nobody. I was sent from my home and wed to a man I barely knew, to be queen of a people I'd never met because my father had the right to choose his kingdom over his own child. But I made Faerie glorious when Oberon couldn't, and I raised two strong sons who are each far, far better than their fathers ever were. You've complained that Oberon never gave you the chance to prove yourself to him but you're wrong. Nobody's given that chance. They take it for themselves, just as you have. Is that not true? Even when he sent you away, even when I failed you because I should have stopped him but didn't - even then, look at what you've become. Look at the allies you've found among the humans. Look at how you'd kept yourself alive all that time, far away from your home. We are not so different, you and I, son. And there has never been a day since you were born when I was not proud of you - or your brother."

Puck glared at her with silver-rimmed eyes, breathing heavily, and his mother stared back defiantly. For a long time, they simply looked at each other, regretting the centuries between them.

"No more secrets," Puck said at last, savagely blinking.

"No more," she promised, her gaze steady.

He nodded and picked up the suit of clothes. "I'll take these," he decided, "but not the sword. He would've used it to kill me and take my kingdom. And when we get home, I'll abdicate to Mustardseed."

Titania watched him with a lump in her throat. The evening sun slanting through the window outlined him in amber, a picture of unearthly beauty, his stature that of one who was born to rule. But Titania saw only the ways he was like Niall: the fair hair and emerald eyes, the warrior's stance, the teasing smile now hidden behind the clenched jaw. It would haunt her - every time she gazed upon her son, she would see _him,_ would relive what she'd done, would remember her choice.

And how surely she knew she'd make that choice again. And again.

"The battle - you fought well . . . Trickster King."

Puck shrugged, dismissing her words. Titania's lips parted as if she would continue, but hesitated.

"Can I . . . would you like me to show you how to shift with . . . those?" Her tone was tentative, almost timid, as she gestured to the clothes he held.

Puck's restless fidgeting abruptly stilled and he swallowed, his face a mask of emotions; in his arms, the pile of fabric trembled slightly. Then he relaxed and shrugged again, his tone light. "Couldn't hurt. And better late than never; if Grimm sees me shift into my natural splendor one more time, she'll have a stroke. As it was, she almost passed out from excitement the last time it happened."

He didn't smile as he said it but after he'd turned away, so that he would no longer see the sadness on her face, his mother did.

* * *

Puck left Titania standing alone by the mound that was his father's grave. Someday, he thought, when the rawness had healed over, he would think about his mother's sacrifice and perhaps feel sorry that she'd destroyed her own future with the man she'd always loved. But someday seemed a long time away yet, and his mind was heavy with his own losses in the meantime.

He was going home.

And he had changed so much in the short days since he'd left it that he didn't know if he could still call it that.

He was going home to Faerie, and he was no longer Faerie's king, could no longer even claim his place at his brother's side at the head of its court, not when none of Oberon's blood flowed through his veins.

He was going home to his brother, and he was a prodigal and a thief who'd stolen his brother's birthright in the masquerade of a lifetime.

He was going home to Sabrina Grimm, who by some miracle had thought he was worth fighting for - but only because he'd had a kingdom to offer her, and his life to keep hers safe.

 _Well, one out of three is better than nothing_ , he decided, allowing a wry smile to soften his features. _I'm still her protector even if she always did give me grief over my crown. And at least I'll get to deal with her last of all, after I've faced the scorn of Faerie - and its new king. Small mercies - gotta be thankful for them._

All evening and night he flew, as well as most of the following day. When the fire pits were lit in the outlying villages and the children summoned indoors for the evening meal, he arrived at the borders of his kingdom, and made his way over the remaining miles to his home.

No one saw him arrive, and he translated the silence as a bad omen as he landed on the bridge and walked to the entrance of the palace. Still the guards did not recognize him because he was bundled in Niall's rough cloak, and because they'd already wept over his remains along the Cein earlier that day. Bathed in the flickering light from the torches beside the main gate, he let himself be arrested by their lowered spears, while they ordered him in harsh voices to identify himself. He almost rolled his eyes. _By morning_ , he thought, _it will not matter what you call me, but for just a little longer, shall we keep pretending?_

He slowly lowered his hood.

Eyes widening as if they had seen a ghost, the guards dropped their weapons and fell to their knees.

* * *

 **A/N: Happy new year, all! This was another of my favorite chapters to write but it probably wasn't the chapter you were hoping would come next. Sorry! That said, I hereby invite you to listen (or read) to me vent, in preparation for the next chapter (which IS probably the one you were hoping this would have been).**

 **So, I'd always wanted to write a conversation between Puck and his mother about growing up. For the longest time, I'd imagined it to be awkward, since it probably involved Sabrina, and that it'd go something like this:**

 **T: Son, I hear that the Grimm girl is the reason that you're growing up.**

 **P: Whatever.**

 **T: (remembers him choosing her as his cocoon guardian) How serious are you about her?**

 **P: What's it to you, Mom?**

 **T: She could well be Queen if you marry her!**

 **P: So?**

 **T: (losing patience) So I think you should choose carefully!**

 **P: I have!**

 **T: No, I mean, choose someone _else_ carefully! Someone who is one of us! **

**P: (sarcastically) An Everafter, you mean?**

 **T: (through gritted teeth) _A fairy_. And I happen to know of quite a few -**

 **P: Oh, for crying out loud, Mom! Are you trying to pull another Moth stunt on me? Because we all know how well that turned out!**

 **T: For your information, she was your father's choice, not mine!**

 **P: _Big_ difference!**

 **And then I wrote this chapter instead. Because Titania isn't the dowager she's made out to be, and for all her wrath and bite, she had to come to terms with herself, too, particularly as a mother, and only then could she let Puck go, to be the King he was meant to be.**

 **This is also when Puck comes to terms with who he really is and what he has to offer Sabrina. I know that in fanficdom, writers usually take for granted that Puck throws his kingship around like a spoilt brat, and he does, and I let him do it in my stories, too. But I also wanted him to realize that it was not who he truly was, and that he was hiding behind that conveniently-powerful identity in all his relationships, particularly with Sabrina. And now that he's lost his throne and (as he's constantly harped on in this chapter) has nothing, he wonders what Sabrina will think of him, if she'll still be impressed. He doesn't know that she's been in Faerie all this time, asking herself the same questions, and arriving at the same place, so that when they meet, they'll _both_ be at Ground Zero, where they can start over without walls and posturing, where all good relationships must begin.**


	19. Chapter Eighteen

**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN**

Closure hit her like a sucker punch to the gut, tasting of dread many layers deep.

 _He's home._

Sabrina's legs crumbled beneath her and she collapsed on the bed beside the backpack that she'd just finished filling in preparation to leave Faerie. Up till that point, it hadn't felt real; there was a small part of her that believed Puck wasn't really gone, that it might even have been an elaborate prank to get her to admit she'd been scared, or that she'd missed him. Wasn't that why she'd continued working on the orphans, the accounts, the red tape? Wasn't that why she was still in Faerie, waiting For Mustardseed to send word - the proof that he was truly not coming back?

Or _not_ send word. So that there would be _no_ proof. So that she could continue hoping.

And everything would've been fine if not for that _damned_ text.

Her gut churned with irrational fury at her own appalling timing. She _should_ have left. If only she _already_ had, or if the text (why _a text_? How _dare_ Mustardseed chose such a _crass_ way to convey something of that importance?) had come a half hour later, she'd have made it almost all the way home, where she wouldn't - _couldn't_ \- be tempted to throw the door open and sprint the forty seconds to the council chamber to see. . . _him_.

She didn't _want_ to see him. Not like this. Not when he couldn't see her back, couldn't tease her or make some off-color remark that would tick her off, which he was annoyingly good at, because he knew her so well.

 _Forty seconds_. She could stretch that to five minutes if she dragged her feet.

 _Or_ she could heft her backpack onto her shoulder and march the other way, back to her own world, leave this all behind her. And let her last image of him be of his fingers twirling her hair, his smile crooked as he vowed that he'd come back.

Which he had.

Just not in the way she'd needed.

She squeezed her eyes shut, swallowing the snarl that was boiling upward in her throat.

 _One last time._

 _For closure._

She left her backpack where it lay.

* * *

The council chamber was empty, motes of dust dancing a riot in the evening sun that slanted benignly through the french doors.

So was the throne room, to which she'd doubled partway back from the council chamber, certain that it was where a king would lie in state while the masses paid their respects in hushed tones and reverent genuflections.

In death, at least; they certainly would not have in life - not for a king with so colorful a personality as his.

Sabrina paused at the door, frowning as her eyes filled with reluctant tears. _Where else could they have taken him?_

Then all at once, she became aware of the noise - a muted roar, as if somewhere, many walls away, there was a great assembly crying out.

 _At least Puck would've liked knowing his loss was felt by so many_ , she thought as she followed the sound. The Great Hall: that's where it was coming from. But as she drew nearer, the fog of sound crystallized into cheers, music, clapping, singing.

It sounded less like corporate lamentation and more like . . . a party.

Bewildered, she broke into a jog. Around her, stragglers pushed ahead, bottlenecking into clusters, leaving her alone to wonder what she would soon be seeing - Mustardseed's coronation perhaps, although surely it was still untimely, when the old King had barely been repatriated, let alone mourned?

The tears still wet on her cheeks, she followed the crowd and ran.

She came to the balcony that overhung the four sides of the Great Hall. The crowd that had surged alongside her trampled down the corner spiral staircases but she remained, peering over the gilded railing to the sight and sounds below.

Hundreds of people were crushed together on the floor, bodies moving to music that floated, unearthly, on the air. She heard the sound of strings and woodwinds and pipes that made her want to weep and explode in ecstasy and join in to dance without a care in the world. It was a party, unrestrained and passionate. Also strangely seductive, Sabrina thought as she watched the hypnotic gyrations, the sensuous writhing, like the hazy neon watering holes of her world but with all the clarity of a midsummer court. This was one of the famed revelries of Faerie, the kinds from the stories, in which impossibly beautiful fairies cavorted under a starlit sky and adoring humans surrendered their souls for the chance to be spellbound by the wonder of it all.

It _was_ a celebration for the new King, then. Who was right there _celebrating_ in the middle of all those bodies. All hail Mustardseed, King of Faerie.

She blinked.

Mustardseed was standing in the far corner next to Feylinn, his arm around her shaking body, her face buried in his shoulder.

Sabrina's gaze flew back to the golden head shining in the lights, his hair flung this way and that as he danced. _Danced._

Her mouth fell open.

 _Alive._

 _Alive!_

 _He's home_ , she'd read in Mustardseed's message.

She thought he'd meant . . .

. . . but what if -

\- all this cheering, laughing, rejoicing was _actually_ -

Her heart, so recently shattered, suddenly swelled with wild hope.

 _Because there. He. Was._

Just as abruptly, she was terrified - that this wasn't real, that he was still dead and she was in a nightmare, watching the last debauchery of fallen souls before they were wrenched away to everlasting damnation.

 _Look up! Look at me! Look at me so I know it's really you and not some imposter, some shapeshifting beast wearing your skin._

But he didn't - why would he? He couldn't have known she was there.

She pinched her arm to ground herself in reality, and the pain made her furious - that he would be celebrating when his court had worried, while she'd grieved as if a part of her soul had been ripped out, while they'd all tried to pull themselves together.

 _What was she missing?_

 _And, more importantly, how could she be anything to him when he was twining himself around every single female - and male - member of his court, his head thrown back, high on the sensations of the moment, as if the last week hadn't happened, had been nothing?_

She spun on her heel and returned the way she came. If she left now, she could still catch the subway home. And return to school, to her normal world - because she sure as heck didn't belong in his.

But her feet took her back to the roof where the evening sky was aflame in vermilion and gold, making silhouettes of the landscape for miles around. She sat down on the cool tile, clenching and unclenching her fists as she tried to make sense of her emotions.

"I thought I might find you here. You're missing a heckuva party, as they say in your world."

Sabrina turned to find Feylinn standing in the archway, her outline in relief against the dramatic backdrop of the setting sun.

They watched each other without a word, and then the fairy girl walked toward her.

"His Majesty has returned," she said at last, smiling through the makeup that had streaked down her face. "Don't you want to see him?"

Sabrina exhaled loudly, as if the action could take the confusion out of her body along with the air from her lungs.

"I've seen him. He's alive. It's a happy ending after all. It's all I need."

Feylinn stared, then abruptly lowered herself beside Sabrina, as if suddenly realizing it was rude to be looking down at her.

"What's this about, Sabrina? Forgive my frankness, but it doesn't seem like you to be stoic at a time like this."

Sabrina played with her fingers for a long time while Feylinn waited - with infinite patience, it seemed.

"There was a lot of . . . celebrating," she said slowly. "I didn't think I. . . fit in. He's with his people - _your_ people - he's just won this war . . . he should be with them to . . . celebrate."

"You mean the dancing." Feylinn sighed, understanding.

"It's not . . . anything," Sabrina defended herself. "It's what you do, right? I just . . ."

 _Couldn't watch._

Feylinn laid her hand on Sabrina's arm. "Fairies - we're like that: sensuous, possessive, consuming. And, to the outside world, yours included, it can seem -" she searched for the word, "- carnal. But it doesn't mean that to us. Revelries and festivals have been a part of our history forever, and while we no longer hold them outdoors among the toadstools like in the days of yore, we still dance together from time to time, particularly in palace courts, and especially to celebrate important victories.

"I've been to your revelries, too," she continued. "In your nightclubs. In fact, there's a particular one in Hell's Kitchen that might even have been inspired by one of ours."

"I wouldn't know," Sabrina replied, "as I've never to been to any."

"Well, you didn't miss much. A lot of sweating, and the music needed work. But the dancing - the. . . the . . ."

"Mindless gyrating?" Sabrina offered.

Feylinn hesitated before conceding with a soft sigh. "Yes. . . but it's not the same. Here, we dance to honor nature and the cycle of life, the freedom - to endure for centuries and be immune to time, to glory in our magic, our fellowship, our families - all the people in our lives that we love. What you saw - it was our people taking pleasure in the return of their King, honoring him, _loving_ him. I can't remember the last time we danced like this in Oberon's court."

 _Oh._

"Come," Feylinn held out her hand. "Let me take you down. Join us. You are a part of this family, too."

"Maybe . . . another time." Sabrina said, still unable to shake her feeling of other-ness. "I really should try to catch the last train home, anyway. I have -" she rolled her eyes at the banality of it all, "- school tomorrow."

"His Majesty would be disappointed that he missed you." Feylinn tried again.

"He'll live," Sabrina said, and savored the unexpected joy those two simple words brought her. "I'll send him a text or something when I get home."

She rose, and Feylinn's eyes followed her.

"By the way," the fairy girl said, and her voice faltered with sudden emotion, "Mustardseed told me about the ambassador program - about your idea. I would be honored to help."

"Great!" Sabrina grinned, relieved to be talking of something else. "I'm glad it'll work out. I mean - see: there's clearly a need for translation between our worlds, right? Just a minute ago, you sorted me out concerning your sensuous fairy rituals and I can rest easy that . . . that . . ."

"That no one is making a move on your man?" Feylinn asked, deadpan, just before she laughed. "Oh, the language of your world! It's . . . it certainly takes getting used to."

Sabrina didn't bother to dispute her on either account. Instead, she laid her hand on Feylinn's arm and said, "And now imagine what you could do between heads of state, and in councils of war - all the big, important things."

Feylinn's eyes glinted in the semi-darkness, savoring the beckoning possibilities. She covered Sabrina's hand with her own. "And matters of the heart," she said seriously, holding Sabrina's gaze. "Sometimes those are even bigger."

Sabrina let her words anchor the space between them.

"I . . . I can't . . ." she whispered at last, "Puck and I . . . we're not . . . _I'm_ not . . . like that. But thank you. Even with everything that's happened, even with . . . tonight, I don't regret being here. I don't regret _you_." And without remembering how it happened, she found herself in the fairy girl's fragrant embrace.

"Thank _you_ ," Feylinn returned, chuckling as she admitted, "Although don't tell anyone that I've just broken about a hundred rules of Fae-mortal relations and put myself forever in your debt with just those two words."

"Well, we're even," Sabrina told her, her smile wide and relaxed, her heart light.

* * *

Back in the guest suite, Sabrina once again prepared to leave. Backpack on her shoulder, she cast one last glance around the room to be sure she'd packed everything; it'd be too funny if she'd left her Math notes in Faerie and had to explain to her teacher that her homework was stuck in an alternate universe.

From the doorway, Feylinn watched her almost disapprovingly.

"I'm fine, really!" Sabrina protested, reading the accusation in the fairy girl's eyes. "I'd just rather His Self-Righteous Majesty didn't give me a hard time for disobeying his orders to stay home. Besides, he'll have his hands full with the prisoners in the dungeon, and the foster kids being shuttled in from all over, not to mention Titania's still MIA. And then there's -"

Her words died in her throat as Feylinn moved aside and, from behind her, Puck silently entered the room. He embraced his cousin, touching his cheek to hers, but his eyes were on Sabrina.

Who couldn't tear hers away from him.

Feylinn smiled triumphantly and disappeared, shutting the door discreetly behind her.

Alone, they stayed where they stood, the length of the room apart.

Sabrina didn't know what to say, and she certainly didn't know what to feel - everything was a tight knot of madness and gladness and twisted, fearful relief. Over everything was a suffocating blanket of sheer exhaustion that numbed all her faculties.

"Well, this is a nice homecoming present," Puck said at last, and at the sound of his voice - so familiar, so real - the knot unraveled.

"I was actually on my way out," she replied, sounding more antagonistic than she'd intended as she struggled to hold everything together.

He frowned at the coldness in her tone, noticing her backpack and the bedspread smoothed over.

"You're leaving? I just got back!"

"Yeah. I noticed. But I've got school tomorrow." She felt the conversation run away from her, in the absolute wrong direction, but she couldn't stop it, couldn't control the sudden and inexplicable fury that boiled up from nowhere. "Some of us have other things to do than fight dragons."

He gawked at her, incredulous.

"Wh . . . Why are you even here?" He asked, clearly still trying to wrap his mind around the image of her in his kingdom, camping out in his guest room.

"You gonna chew me out for not staying home?"

"What? No. I'm just glad you're in one piece."

"Look who's talking."

"Sabrina -" He took a step closer.

Instinctively, she backed away. The alternative, she decided, was slugging him for putting her through hell, for making her believe he was gone forever.

He froze, his gaze troubled.

"Please, let's not fight anymore. I know things were . . . I know I messed up, but I promised I'd come back, right? You have to believe me. You were the one person I kept thinking of, that kept me going, so I could come home to you."

"Why? So you could claim bragging rights?" Sabrina bristled. "Well, try this: I took out five dragons. How many did you kill? Five hundred?"

Puck's expression clouded, and he smiled sadly. "Just one."

Sabrina fake - gasped. "That's it? Just _one_ to your almighty name?"

"Well . . . " he faltered slightly, "I had . . . help."

She shook her head in mock disappointment. "You're losing your touch, hotshot. I hope he was a big one."

Puck's smile faded. "You could say that."

Something in his face gave Sabrina pause. It felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room; in the middle of her chest, something squeezed, cruel and tight.

"What's wrong, Puck?" she whispered.

He hesitated, feeling the pressure of everything that had happened in the last days pushing against the walls he'd erected to keep it all in. Sabrina had been there for him when Oberon had died, when he'd exorcised his demons by the river bank as his father - or so he'd believed - had drifted away from him forever. And she'd been there for him over the years when he'd put himself back together, had written over the mockery of a legacy that centuries of criticism and castigation had inscribed on his soul, when he'd dared to hope for a new future for Faerie, and for himself.

And while she'd taunted him for everything else, she'd _never_ laughed about that.

 _She got it then_ , he remembered. _And maybe_ _she'll get it - get_ me _\- again_. Even though she'd made it painfully clear - even now - that they were better off _not_ getting each other.

But maybe this once . . .

 _Please_ , he begged her in his mind as he looked at the one face he'd locked in his memory all the time he'd been away from her, _please_ get _me_.

He took a deep breath and told her.

Disconnected and angry, he let the pain came roaring out, ripping open old wounds he'd tried to heal, to forget. He spat out words like _cursed_ and _worthless_ and _nothing_ and _never_ and with them painted a picture of a son so wretched his own father - _fathers_ \- had chosen their kingdoms over him. Then when the words ended, he sat with his head in his hands and let his silence scream _why_ and _how_ _on earth_ and _can I ever_.

After, when he could speak again, he'd told her about Henry; how, although he was a king who'd been sired by immortals, it had taken a human man to show him what it meant to have a father. He was damned, he said, that fate could be so cruel, so _sadistic_ , because he hadn't known what he'd been missing until he'd met the Grimms and seen it, felt it, lived it, _resented_ it, resented _her_ for what she had.

And Sabrina froze where she stood, blindsided by the force of his wrath and how it dissipated into the small, sad child who'd tried, and tried, and tried, only to find the brand new shame of being claimed by a stranger who'd used his secrets to rob him of his family, his kingdom, his home.

"Oh, crud, Puck," she said when he was at last silent, and swore a few more times for good measure. She didn't say a word more, not even to suggest that he'd be okay, and certainly not to grandly promise there was a bigger purpose for the way his life had seemed like a twisted prank in the hands of a capricious god. After all, didn't she, too, know what it was like to be kept in the dark about who she was?

"Parents - they and their secrets," she said instead. "They always think they know what's best for us, don't they? But in the end, it's always the same - it comes back to bite everyone in the backside."

And he sighed in relief because Sabrina had nailed it - exactly how he felt in _that_ moment. Curses, not platitudes; honesty instead of lies - _this_ was why he'd picked her, _this_ was why there could be a happy ever after for them.

"When _we_ have kids," he said resolutely, "we're telling them _everything_."

Sabrina sucked in a breath. Just months ago, she'd have made a snide remark about their future, about his arrogance and presumption. But tonight, after all that had happened, . . .

She moved and closed the distance between them, sinking to the floor before him as she'd done years ago when he'd first opened himself to her. She slid between his knees, into the cage he'd made with his shoulders and fists, and wrapped her arms around him. She pressed her face against his chest, her ear against his broken heart. Involuntarily, he shuddered at the gesture, the kindness in her silence in the face of an utterly different kind of nakedness.

She held him in that silence, and let him lean on her strength as his deserted him.

"In a few minutes," he said in a hoarse whisper, "I have to go back to the Great Hall and give my people the speech they've been waiting for - how we've won the war and how it's all over now and Faerie is safe and free. They'll be expecting more feasts and celebrations and virtual hurrahs on Twitter and Facebook and everything. They'll want to hear all the grand plans I have for Faerie now that we're at peace."

Puck looked at her at last. "They'll expect me to be King. To be like Oberon. And I'm not like him. I'm even less like him than I thought."

She put her fingers over his lips. "You are the strongest person I know. You can do this."

"Mustardseed should be King. He doesn't know any of this yet, but _he's_ Oberon's heir. The throne should be his. And I'd surrender it right now if I only knew how to without destroying the people's joy, and tearing down everything we've already built or exposing what Mother's done behind our backs all these centuries. As it is, we've decided it's probably better if she didn't show her face around here for a while, until all the hell's died down, at least. First things first, though - I need to find Mustardseed and tell him the truth. Perhaps he'll be able to tell them what they need to hear. He was always better with words than me. Will you wait? I'll be back as soon as I can."

He rose and took her hand, seeming so much older than his seventeen human years, and Sabrina sensed a new gravity about him, a calm strength that made her realize why Faerie had continued to endure - and flourish - even after Oberon's death. It seemed like yesterday that they were eleven and he'd stood in a brawling bar room making snide remarks about her while she cringed and read her mother's encouraging words to the citizens who'd gathered there. Then, he'd looked like a pantomime king in his oversize robe, and she? She hadn't even cared for this little marginalized community; she'd only done it because she'd wanted her mother's work to mean something.

How the years had changed them both.

"Speaking of which," Sabrina broke out of her thoughts, "I tweaked a few things here while you were out with your buddies, clubbing dragons over the head. Mordred helped. Hopefully that'll keep your subjects happy for a little while."

He nodded, grateful. "Sure you don't wanna come?"

"Neh. I like it behind the scenes. Go give your State of the Union Address or whatever, before they think you've skipped town again."

"I might not have to. I'm not even the Crown Prince anymore. I'm just the bastard son."

Sabrina snorted. "I'm sure Titania would be pleased to hear her genes mean nothing. Look, if you're deposed, then so be it. You'll be able to do whatever you want and go wherever you want without the responsibility of a kingdom weighing you down. We can camp out at Gray's and eat hotdogs every day for the rest of our lives."

"But I won't be King of Faerie. Don't _you_ care? That I'm a nobody?"

"You'll never be a nobody. And you must be stupider than I thought if you believed that being King had anything to do with why I chose you."

He blinked at her words.

"You're _choosing_ me?"

" _Chose_. Past tense. Done deal. Now go, before I change my mind."

His lips parted and he was aware that his face was unflatteringly slack, but his mind was desperately stuck replaying her words and on the way her mouth was turned up as her eyes devoured his face, as if she were taking him in for the very first time.

He smiled, suddenly bashful and unexpectedly humbled. Even faced with the prospect of his brother's judgement and the loss of everything he used to be, he felt as if his soul had already been washed clean.

* * *

He found Mustardseed in the throne room. The Prince had dragged a folding chair from who-knew-where and was sitting in it with elbows on knees, staring absently at the empty throne. He turned his head when he heard Puck enter, and his face lit up.

"No - you're better off sitting down for this," Puck cautioned when he saw his brother rise from his seat.

Mustardseed frowned, but remained standing.

"Well, suit yourself," Puck said, and launched right into it.

Years later, the two would look back at how their relationship was irrevocably changed by what transpired that night before the throne of Faerie. No conversation was more painful, no moment more vulnerable than when the truth was laid bare between them and they finally understood the power each had over the other. It was not a question of kingship but what it meant instead to be blood and kin and to choose for themselves what they'd taken for granted was theirs by birthright. All of Puck's expectations for his brother to judge - or, worse, pity - him shattered as Mustardseed grabbed his neck and pulled him into a crushing hug.

"Brother," he said. " _Nothing_ has changed. You were a king before you knew this, and you will be a king after. And you are mine, and I _love_ you."

Then both wept without shame on the other's shoulder, Puck in relief and Mustardseed in joy at having his brother returned safe and sound. And Mustardseed sank to one knee before an overwhelmed Puck and swore his fealty once more to his brother and his sovereign, and the kingdom they both loved.

Finally, Mustardseed told him what Sabrina and Mordred had done for Faerie while Puck had been away and, had Sabrina been there, her ears would've burned to hear the praise and gratitude he heaped on her. Puck himself listened slack-jawed - when she said she'd "tweaked a few things" he had no idea she'd meant _this_.

"She said she did it to take her mind off worrying about you," Mustardseed finished. "I can't wait to see what she does when she's actually in a normal state of mind."

"She doesn't really have one," Puck airily informed his brother, but his voice was warm with pride.

Mustardseed hid his smile as he asked, "Incidentally, did she box your head in for leaving like that?"

"No," Puck said thankfully.

"Hm," his brother looked thoughtful and completely serious. " _I_ would've."

* * *

Puck joined Mustardseed and Feylinn in the Great Hall to continuing revelry and celebration. Completely unaware of the royal scandal in which the brothers were embroiled (to say nothing of their Queen), the court approved of the changes spearheaded by Sabrina and Mordred to thunderous effect. By the end of Puck's speech, the Hall was resounding with pounding feet and chants of "Grimm! Grimm! Grimm! Grimm!" that carried to its very rafters. If Puck had still had his phone, he'd have recorded it to show to Sabrina, just because he knew it would annoy her to be so thrust into the limelight.

"Could be a good time to hint that she might be the next Queen," Mustardseed muttered under his breath.

Puck winced. "Uh, no. She'd have my head. Apparently, I don't _deserve_ her."

"Well, she's right." Mustardseed agreed, and gladly took the answering shove from Puck. "You should've heard her chew Lothorien out for letting you go on by yourself. Never seen him blanch in anyone's face like that."

"It was hard call for him," Puck replied, looking somber. "I knew it'd kill him to sit it out, but he'd have been slaughtered by Niall. And then what would I tell his girls? At least this way he'd live to fight another day. He'll get over it."

"I think he'd have preferred to fight a dragon over Sabrina, though."

Puck grinned. "Who wouldn't?"

After, Puck returned to Sabrina's room and paused outside her door, suddenly apprehensive. He was still stunned and - if he were honest - slightly awed by what she'd had done for Faerie (and him). He'd known she was resourceful, not to mention utterly driven, so it didn't surprise him that she hadn't sat around twiddling her thumbs while he'd been away. But it was her motivation that moved him - with no promise of personal gain, she'd done it for _him_ , even after she'd believed him dead, because she knew it was what he'd wanted, because she'd believed he was _right_. No one, in all his thousands of years of life, had ever done that for him.

He didn't know how to thank her, or to let her know that he didn't want her to ever stop doing that for him. And while the thought scared the living daylights out of him, he couldn't wait to grow up - couldn't wait for _them both_ to grow up - so he could ask her to be truly his, and spend all the days of his life returning the favor, for better or for worse.

Although there was always the chance that she'd punch him into the next century for even suggesting it. He'd have to find the words - _the translation,_ as her father had so wisely called it.

He knocked, but there was no answer, so he cautiously let himself in.

Sabrina, laid waste by days' worth of anxiety and adrenaline, was fast sleep on the bed, her head lolling off the pillow, her mouth breathy and half-open.

Puck sat beside her, disappointed and slightly disgusted with himself - his eleven-year-old self would've smashed pots and pans together and roared in joy when Sabrina screamed herself awake. Yet here he was, watching her sleep as he gently fingered her hair, resolving to be quicker to love and slower to fear, to be kinder, stronger, _better_.

 _Ugh,_ he thought, _I've become such a sap. I've completely lost all self-respect. And it's all your fault._

"At least I'm still King," he murmured, not expecting her to hear.

"Didn't manage to get yourself deposed, huh?" Sabrina slurred back, barely coherent, her eyes still shut.

His smiled in surprised delight at finding her somewhat awake. "Yeah, Mustardseed didn't want the throne, the lazy bugger."

"Slacker." The corners of Sabrina's mouth twitched.

"Deadbeat." Puck agreed.

Sabrina yawned. "So you got all worked up for zilch. Told you. Now shut up and get down here. I missed you, dummy."

Puck happily lowered himself onto the pillow behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. But she turned until her face was before his and opened sleepy eyes to find him staring at her with a tenderness that took her breath away. She swallowed the lump in her throat and whispered what she wished she'd said earlier instead of the prickly assault she'd leveled at him: "You're alive."

"Yes," he answered, "I am."

"And you're mine."

"Yes," he repeated, his face radiant. "I am."

Then she exhaled the breath she'd been holding the past week and tucked her head under his chin, in that spot against his shoulder that seemed made precisely for tucked heads, noses pressed to jawbones and the sweet empirical kisses of halting reacquaintance.

"Don't _ever_ do that to me again -" she chided, "- getting yourself half-killed like some feeble amateur. Or _all_ -killed."

He pressed his lips to the top of her head and thought that she smelt like long days and even longer nights. "Sorry - can't promise that, as long as there are enemies to be conquered and villains to slay. But I swear to you that I'll always come back."

"From the dead, even? I don't think I'd care for spirit visitations."

Puck snorted quietly into the stillness of the room. "So cynical. Come on - you know what I mean."

They lay in silence, and Puck listened to Sabrina's slow breathing as he tossed words around in his head.

"Stay," he blurted out.

Sabrina made a soft sound of annoyance. "Duh. The last train left hours ago, thanks to your fancy midnight party. I'm gonna have to just crash here again tonight and catch the first one home after breakfast. Or, actually, straight to school. I'll call Mo -"

"No. I mean _stay. With me_."

She was unmoving for a full second before she pulled back to look him in the eye.

"I'm done being apart, Puck."

His heart soared, and he pulled her against him with sudden force, wordlessly burying his face in her hair, holding her like the universe might try to take her away if he didn't, the way it had stolen so many others from him. She stroked his head with uncharacteristic gentleness, a delayed reaction to the fact that not six hours earlier, she'd believed she'd never touch him again.

"I want you in my world. I'll _always_ want you in my world," he added unnecessarily, in a voice that was strangely hoarse.

" 'Kay," she agreed, deciding right there that it really was.

He released a heavy breath, suddenly unsure, thinking of his mother's homeland, of the wild people who became even wilder creatures with just a flip of their will.

"Although," he warned, "you might just change your mind after you see _all_ of it."

"Can any of it be worse than _you_ , Gashead?"

 _Not really._

He laughed, and she felt it rumble right through him. _Alive. Safe. Here._

"I'm glad you're not dead, Stinkpot," she sighed, nuzzling his jaw and feeling the rough brush of stubble.

"Oh, are we getting mushy now?"

"Yes, we are getting mushy now. You got a problem with that, fairy boy?" The edge in her voice was both a taunt and an invitation, and his blood roared to life as he felt her leg slide against his.

"No problem," he purred, "no problem at all. The King of Faerie is _amazing_ at mushy, I'll have you know. I hope you were done with your nap, though, 'cos I can keep going all night."

"Huh. Big words. I'll believe it when I see it."

Puck grinned, recognizing the challenge.

"Wakey-wakey," he teased in a husky whisper, right before he cupped her face, tucked her body under his, and kissed every sleepy thought from her mind.

* * *

 **A/N: You're welcome ;)**

 **And btw, this is not the end. Because closure. Must. Have. More. Closure** **(you're welcome for that, too).**


	20. Chapter Nineteen

**CHAPTER NINETEEN**

It was utterly weird, that transition between fantastical and normal. Seamless yet jarring, one day she was fighting monsters and mending the social fabric of an entire nation and the next, she was heading off to first period study hall and AP economics a mere train ride away.

 _What a weekend_ , Sabrina thought as she stood with Puck in the hallway outside her room. _I'm still not sure it wasn't all a dream._

"I don't see why you still need to go to school," Puck complained with his hands stuffed into his pockets. "I mean, you're practically working for me now, aren't you? You're like my military adviser, ambassador-in-chief, CFO and director of social services all rolled into one. How's your school gonna top that? My _mother_ doesn't even do half of it, and she's _Queen!_ "

He paused, the tilt of his lips abruptly turning disgruntled to ecstatic.

"Hey. . .!" He exclaimed, eyes aglow, " _you_ could be Queen! Wanna be Queen?"

"Nice try, Puck," Sabrina said as she knelt to stuff her laptop into her backpack. "But I'm _still_ catching the train to school."

"Humph. I don't ask just anyone, you know. You should be honored! Half the females in my kingdom would kill to be you right now."

"And the other half?"

"They're the ones killed."

"What a friendly bunch of people to be Queen of, then," Sabrina remarked sarcastically. "I'm surprised there are _any_ females left in Faerie, considering the amount of catfighting going on just to earn your favor."

"I knew it! It _bothers_ you, doesn't it, that everyone wants me?"

"Only if they try to kill me for it. Like Moth. Hm. . . maybe everyone'll remember how _she_ turned out and wisely keep away."

"Ooo - _someone's_ claws are out today. Just admit it, Grimm - you don't like sharing."

Sabrina finished zipping up her backpack and stood once more before him. The memory of the celebration in the Great Hall flashed through her mind.

"No," she admitted, "I don't. But I'm not making a big deal of it, so if you're hoping I'll scratch some fairy girl's eyes out for you, don't hold your breath. You do things your way in your world, and I do things my way in mine, right? And anyway, I hope we're not shallow like that. Not after . . . everything, I mean. Please, Puck, let's not go back to stupidly fighting and second-guessing, okay? I like _this_. . . I like what we are now."

Puck's expression softened into a lopsided smirk and Sabrina knew she'd won her case.

"Call me when the kids are in," she smiled back at him. "I wanna hear how it all works out with the Shoe and Dame Whatsername and Hamelin."

"Okay." He drew her into his arms and sighed dramatically. "Fine. Go to your loser school if you want. But stay away from those mortal boys, Stinkhead. They couldn't even knock out a tooth, let alone a dragon, or anything else worth posting on Instagram."

"Then you have nothing to worry about, Mister." Sabrina leaned in to kiss him goodbye, and was interrupted by a voice behind them.

"So - a happy ending after all, in spite of the sackcloth and ashes, not to mention the dismembered body parts."

Sabrina blinked, turning. It sounded just like something Puck would say, except -

She glanced back to the boy holding her, just to be sure.

Yes - there he was still, looking bemused.

A black T-shirt angled into her line of sight, its wearer almost unrecognizable with the smile on his face.

"Looks like good times were had by all," he said. "Guess my job is done here, then."

"Mordred!" Sabrina beamed. She disentangled herself from Puck's arms and hugged the warlock.

Puck's eyebrows shot up in disbelief, then sank low over his eyes in a scowl of displeasure.

Mordred awkwardly patted her back. "Told you," he murmured in her ear, quietly smug, "Fae warriors _always_ win dragon battles."

She tightened her arms around his neck.

Beside them, Puck pointedly cleared his throat.

"Your Majesty," Mordred said evenly, as if he hadn't just cut into a private moment which at least one party didn't appreciate. "Welcome home, and congratulations; I heard about the battle. It must've been amazing. Wish I'd been there to see it."

 _I bet_ , Sabrina thought. _All the gaming tips we'd pick up._

"It was a hard fight," Puck replied stiffly, "and not one I want to think about anytime soon. But yes, it's good to be done with that and back home. Much better scenery here."

He glanced at Sabrina as he said this, and Mordred grinned as he felt the waves of aggression pouring off the fairy.

Sabrina shot Puck a look and hid her own smile.

"Speaking of which," she changed the subject, "Mordred's writing a simulation training program for your warriors. Because it's virtual reality, they can practice fighting dragons onscreen without actually having to go out on the battle field and, you know, accidentally die. We thought it would be especially useful when real dragons aren't in season. And not just dragons - he can tweak it for any kind of monstrous beast."

"Keeps track of the high scores and particularly spectacular victories," Mordred added, trying to look modest. "As motivation, you know. Everyone loves a happy ending."

"Doesn't seem like you to dig the happy endings," Puck responded a little grumpily.

Mordred frowned. "Just because I like death and destruction onscreen doesn't mean I don't cheer when the bad guy gets it between the eyes. Or that I don't think it sucks when the girl gets the guy and then he dies right after the wedding."

It took Sabrina a few seconds to realize he wasn't talking about the game anymore. A quick glance at Puck confirmed that he, too, knew what Mordred meant. Nobody felt like commenting and as they continued to stand in the ensuing silence, Sabrina felt some of Puck's aggression evaporate into the void.

"Well," Mordred said at last, "No reason to hang around. I'll send you the program when it's ready to go. It would've been done by now but I wanted to add some mods for your high achievers. Wouldn't want them to get bored, would we?"

Sabrina took his arm. "And if I don't get going, too, I'll be late for school. I'll walk you out," she said, ignoring the daggers Puck was staring at their backs.

"I don't think His Majesty's finished with you," Mordred pointed out when they'd left Puck a safe distance behind.

Sabrina shushed him with a dismissive wave.

"How _is_ she doing these days - your mom?" She asked instead.

"Okay. Traveling a lot. Still bewitching men wherever she goes - you know her." Mordred paused. "She's doing much better than she was, though."

Sabrina nodded.

"Thanks for asking," he added.

"Thanks for _everything_ ," she returned quietly.

He hesitated.

"When you can sneak away from your possessive boyfriend, we should get together for another round of D&D sometime," he suggested. "There's a victory margin I'd like to widen."

She snorted. "He doesn't own me. And yeah, D&D would be awesome."

"Cool." Mordred said, and turned to go.

"Hey." Sabrina called after him, and he swiveled toward her once more.

"You know, I really think you should consider being a warlock sometime. Fae warriors may trump dragon battles but - free tip: statistically, warlocks are _unmatched_ in Kingdom Capture and Rebuilding."

Mordred's eyes shone at the hidden meaning in her words. Slowly and deliberately, he took a step toward her, bowed and kissed her hand.

"Your Majesty; Mordred LeFay, always at your service," he said solemnly, then swiped crackling fingertips across his iPhone screen and vanished.

* * *

Two weeks later, Sabrina and Puck went on another date. It was actually exactly the same date, except on a different day, because they were revisiting all the stops in their first date, including the discount store for hygiene supplies. Sabrina called it "a pathetic rerun" but Puck thought differently.

"How many people go on _repeated_ dates?" He'd cackled on the phone the night before while they made plans.

"Unimaginative stick-in-the-mud people, that's who," had been Sabrina's sarcastic answer.

"No - think about it: all the dating people in the world have this lame mindset that all dates have to be different and -" he'd waggled his hand in the air, not that Sabrina could see it, "- _special_ , right? Like a performance they have to ace to get the girl . . . or guy. No one ever thinks of going on exactly the _same_ date over and over again! You and I are the only two people in the galaxy who're doing this! _We're_ the special ones! Look, we'll even make it a competition to see how many things we can do _exactly_ the same as last time! Winner gets the loser to do whatever he wants. I bet I win."

Sabrina had rolled her eyes. "You're OCD, is what you are. Although I'd never have guessed, given your level of personal hygiene."

"You mock me, my lady." Puck had sounded hurt. "I was about to say that I'll win because I memorized every detail from our last date - it was so wonderful that I wouldn't change a thing."

Sabrina had gagged as Puck gave an exaggerated sigh.

"And also because we only ever had _one_ date," he'd confessed with dissatisfaction.

"It's doomed to fail from the outset," she'd interrupted his melodrama. "For one thing, last time you came to my school and created mayhem, remember?"

"Oh, so you think I haven't got the guts to re-issue a challenge to that wimpy wrestling dude who -"

"NO!" Sabrina had bellowed. "We had to call in all kinds of favors to make everyone forget you even appeared, remember?"

"Which will _not_ happen again. I was horribly offended. The world must know what it missed; this time, I will make sure of it."

"There will be NO 'this time', moron. You aren't turning up at my school tomorrow, or ever."

"Not even to pick you up?" He'd asked slyly. "You know you want to show me off."

"Puh-leaze, "Sabrina had shuddered, thinking of the unwanted attention Puck would undoubtedly attract. "Besides, you'd never get your enormous head through the doors."

In spite of Sabrina's best efforts, they ended up repeating almost everything they did on their first date, including (to her horror) Puck turning up at her school. He did, however, dutifully report at the office, scrawling HIS ROYAL MAJESTY PUCK KING OF FAERIE in flourishing script on the sign-in sheet before texting _guess where i am?_ and sending her into a panicked sprint to the main door.

She almost screamed when she saw him through the window of the admin office waving merrily at her, and it took her all of three seconds to haul him out to the parking lot and away from her befuddled friends.

"Are you ashamed of being seen with me or something?" He questioned in bewilderment, as she practically frog-marched him toward the student parking lot.

Sabrina decided that there was no right answer to that question, so she barked instead, "Where's the car?"

He twisted out of her grip and pointed back the way they'd come.

"Bike," he corrected. "There was a sign that said 'VIP parking' so that's where I parked. _And_ I remembered the spare helmet. You're welcome."

Sabrina stopped dead in her tracks.

"That's the _principal's_ spot, idiot!"

"Didn't look like he was using it."

"He's out, obviously!"

"Well, then it's fair game. Plus it _did_ say VIP and clearly I'm more important than he is."

Sabrina clawed her face and exhaled noisily.

"What?" Puck protested. "At least I didn't _fly_ here, right?"

She shook her head wearily. "Let's just go," she begged him, "before someone notices."

"And that's a bad thing . . . why?"

Sabrina whimpered behind her hands.

* * *

Seven hot dogs, two fruit shakes, three malts and an obscenely huge basket of cheese fries later, Sabrina and Puck returned to her apartment, packages of toilet paper rolls once more tucked comically under their arms. Puck looked slightly put out that they had to share the elevator with a young mother with a baby in a stroller.

"Last time we were in here -" he muttered unhappily in her ear as the baby howled and kicked.

"I _know_ what happened last time," she hissed back, blushing furiously.

"Well, there's the apartment, at least," he conceded as they exited the elevator on their floor and padded down the hallway, his mood improving with each step that took them closer to her door. "Didn't you say that Marshmallow -"

He stopped short when they heard Daphne's and Basil's voices arguing on the other side of the apartment door. Sabrina paused with her key in her hand and eyed Puck, who stared back, aghast.

"Roof?" She suggested.

"Roof." He agreed, rolling his eyes.

So up they went, and sat for a long time watching the city below, she in the huddle of his body, he with his arms around her, one leg dangling off the parapet in blatant disregard for gravity as he peppered slow kisses on her neck.

"I've been thinking," Puck began, sounding vague and careless, although Sabrina knew better, "we should take a trip sometime."

"Where?" She asked unwarily, her brain devoid of coherent thought.

"Oh - the great outdoors. You know . . . nature. . . open sky, that sort of thing."

"I thought you hated camping."

"It's not camping! More like . . . mountains, a lot of flying, picnicking under the stars . . ."

"Sounds suspiciously like camping to me. Which, since that Dragon Fiasco, I'm not a fan of much."

"That was just that one time! Plenty of people go camping without being kidnapped by dragons. Besides, food always tastes better outdoors, haven't you noticed?"

Sabrina huffed quietly. "I'll just take a hot dog from Gray's, thanks."

"No, really! Oh, _fine_ , I confess: I was gonna drag you off to my cave. Or village. Or kingdom. . . _other_ kingdom."

Sabrina's eyes widened as she caught his meaning. She twisted in his arms to look at him.

"Like, Dragon Land?"

"It has a name!"

"Which is . . .?"

Puck produced a sound from the back of his throat that reminded Sabrina of a homeless person she'd once seen vigorously hawking a spitwad onto the sidewalk.

"Let's go with Dragon Land," she decided.

Puck rolled his eyes. "Ignorant human peasant," he muttered. "But yeah. _That_ kingdom. So . . . wanna go?"

"Why?"

"Just 'cause. Thought you might wanna see . . . where I came from."

Sabrina considered this. If she remembered her facts correctly, this kingdom was at least a day's flight away. Which meant a fair bit of time traveling and being away from home - time she'd be spending alone with Puck.

It was a disaster waiting to happen. They'd probably blow up the world without even trying and inadvertently start a war with a neighboring star system - they were hopelessly cursed that way.

Although . . . it _had_ been a while since they'd had some time to themselves without parents looking over their shoulders, or one or the other being in mortal peril.

"This a date?" She asked him.

"If you want," he replied, eyes dancing with mischief.

"Whatever happened to 'let's just repeat the same stuff on all dates?' "

Puck grunted low in his chest. "It got old."

"Hah!" Sabrina burst out in triumph.

Seconds passed.

"So?" Puck pressed. "Wanna go or not?"

"I don't think my dad will agree."

"Why? Does he still think I'll get you killed or forget to bring you back home, or what? I've kept you alive all these years, haven't I?"

"No. It's just . . ."

" _What_?"

Sabrina's face heated as she remembered the conversation she'd had with Henry in the kitchen weeks ago. "He and Mom thought we were. . . you know."

"We were what?"

Sabrina pushed her thumbs into her eye sockets in disbelief. How could this boy be so clueless? She couldn't believe she was going to have to spell it out for him. She gritted her teeth and ground out her words. "They were concerned that you might knock me up at some point."

Puck's brow furrowed in genuine confusion.

"But . . . I _will_. . . I mean, aren't we supposed to be married someday and have, like, one million babies or something?"

"I meant _now_ , doofus. They thought it was happening _now_ ," Sabrina sighed in exasperation, well aware that her face was still on fire.

His face relaxed, as if he'd had a sudden epiphany.

Sabrina gasped and punched him. "It wasn't a _suggestion_ , sleaze bag!"

"Dang," he said, then grinned wickedly at her as she sputtered and tried to call him more rude names.

"Sabrina." He took her hand.

She continued berating him.

"Sabrina," he said, more loudly, and she finally stopped and looked at him.

"What?"

"We're _immortal_. There's no hurry. I'm perfectly capable of being completely honorable and gentlemanly . . . till whenever."

In spite of the slight smirk dancing on his lips, his tone was perfectly serious, and Sabrina blinked and swallowed.

"Yeah, well, _duh_. I mean, you'd . . . uh. . . okay," she choked out, suddenly unable to to look him in the eye.

The smirk softened into a warm smile as he swung his leg off the parapet onto the concrete floor, pulling Sabrina with him.

"What?" He paused when she planted her feet on the ground and resisted. She looked like she were about to combust.

"Nothing. It's just . . ." she bit her lip, "we've just never actually talked about this before. I mean, you've only ever joked about it, right? Like in the cave, and . . ."

Puck waited, his hand in hers.

"And you've . . . I dunno, been, like, eleven for _ever_ . . . and I just never know if you actually. . . you know . . . I mean, can you . . . do you even -"

The smirk turned roguish as understanding dawned, and it was his turn to be incredulous. He stepped toward her, slightly bemused. "Couldn't you _tell_?" His voice dipped to the barest whisper. "How much I wanted you?"

Goosebumps erupted over every inch of her skin and Sabrina shivered, pinned by the intensity of his gaze. Wordlessly, she nodded, scarlet as a sunset.

Puck's thumb shifted subtly over hers, and then he shook his head violently. "Four thousand years . . ." he muttered and tugged her toward the staircase. "Four freaking _thousand_ years. . ."

"Sorry," Sabrina said, unable to stop a grin. Her heart was still pounding in her ears but at least she could breathe again.

"No you're not." Puck glared at her. "You're _enjoying_ seeing my reputation in shambles. Anyway, we should go before it turns cold. To visit my home, I mean. As for softening up your dad - leave that to me." His eyes glinted. "Worst case scenario: I threaten to turn into a dragon and kidnap you. Deja vu!"

* * *

Back at the apartment, the Grimm family was winding down for the night. Basil and Daphne were upstairs in the loft watching a movie and Sabrina went to join them. Puck sauntered into the kitchen where Henry and Veronica were putting dishes away.

"I've brought your daughter back safe and sound and with her virtue uncompromised," he announced grandly.

Veronica's brow pinched.

"I should think so," she said archly. "We expected nothing less."

Behind her, Henry coughed pointedly.

But Puck had already moved on, having discovered a crock of chocolate chip cookies sitting on the counter, into which he dipped his hand and withdrew three.

"Sabrina bake these?" He mumbled with his mouth full, and beamed when Veronica said yes.

"Excellent! I always knew she was a good catch. But _this_ \- this just doubled her market value."

Veronica's gasp was drowned by the strangled noise in Henry's throat as he contemplated grabbing the crock and wiping the self-entitled grin off Puck's face with it.

Puck noticed his expression and looked somewhat contrite.

"Chill, old man. I'm kidding. I meant 'tripled'."

Henry took one step toward Puck before the boy threw his head back in laughter. "Still kidding!" He chuckled out.

It occurred to Henry that he almost liked it better in the old days when Puck and Sabrina were constantly bickering. Now, it seemed as if all their boundaries were shot and she'd spread her wings like a free spirit, hovering in uncharted territory into which he was not invited to lead her, or follow.

Beside him, Veronica abruptly yawned.

"I'm going to bed," she declared, not looking the slightest bit sleepy. "You boys can stay up if you want."

Henry glared at her retreating back with a feeling of utter betrayal. It wasn't that he didn't want to talk to Puck; he'd have just preferred Veronica to be there to stop him from putting his foot in his mouth. It certainly seemed to happen a fair bit whenever this boy was around.

 _Well_ , he decided gloomily, _might as well get on with it_. He took a breath and attempted to lean casually (or so he hoped) against the counter.

"So, what's new at Faerie?"

"A new world order." Puck puffed his chest out. "Lowest rates of unemployment and homelessness in centuries. And juvenile crime is practically non-existent now that we've cleared the waifs off the streets and into foster care. That's thanks to Sabrina. Whoda thought she'd be good for something other than punching people in the face? Pity she seems to like going to school, otherwise I'd offer her a job - there's all kinds of benefits and career advancement opportunities working for me, not to mention the retirement gratuity."

Henry didn't think the disgruntled security team of gnomes and leprechauns Puck had once hired to watch their house would agree. But he wisely withheld his comments and changed the subject instead.

"Everything back to normal after the war?"

The question couldn't have been more loaded, whether or not Henry had meant it to be. Puck's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.

"All in a day's work," Puck deflected breezily. "Sent the last of the prisoners packing just this past week. Good thing, too - we were going broke keeping them from starving to death. At least they were Fae again - it would've been worse feeding dragons. But my people are safe, and there was no real damage, we rooted out the guy responsible and, like I said, we're rebuilding. I think I can say I'm ahead in the polls. Pity Faerie isn't a democracy, huh? This would've been a heck of a re-election year."

He reached for a fourth cookie and turned to leave.

Henry watched him, puzzled. Although he couldn't put his finger on it, a strange change had come over Puck since the dragon invasion. He was as cocky as ever, if not worse, yet there was an odd pensiveness about him, an arresting dignity in his carriage; if Henry hadn't considered the idea utterly ludicrous, it was almost as if overnight, the boy had somehow become a man. Something tugged strongly inside him, and opened his mouth to let it out.

"Puck, Oberon would've been proud of you."

Puck froze in the doorway, every muscle in his face taut. _Henry didn't know; Sabrina must not have told him._

He debated shrugging it off with a flippant quip. He was good at that - he'd practically patented the tactic.

 _Or_ he could tell Henry the truth.

He turned and regarded the older man, sure that he could read his secret on his face. Henry stared back, no doubt believing Puck was moved by this unexpected bit of praise.

Puck released the breath he'd been holding.

"Oberon isn't my father. Apparently, I'd been sired by . . . some other . . . Mother's ex-lover. She and Oberon conveniently decided not to tell me. Or Mustardseed."

Even though he'd already decided to come clean with Henry, he didn't know why he'd let on all _that_. He only knew that it was just as hard to say the third time around as the first - but that the knot in his chest loosened just a little bit more with each retelling.

Henry's mouth had fallen open in shock. But he blinked and made himself speak.

"When did you find out?"

Puck looked bored. "Couple weeks." Fact. Facts were painless; he could do facts.

"Do you know who he is?" Henry kept his voice kind, even as he cringed at how much _more_ he was making the boy talk.

"Yeah. I met him."

"How - how did that go?"

"He tried to assassinate me and claim my kingdom, and threatened your daughter's life, so I killed him."

Henry felt like he'd been punched in the gut as the facts clicked together in his head. The war with the dragons. The kingdom filled with shapeshifters and their overlord who'd masterminded the invasion of Faerie that had gone so terribly wrong. The fatal battle from which only Puck had emerged with his life. And the boy fairy's unusual ability to morph into all kinds of things, including the winged beasts who were the dark stars of the whole bloody drama. He'd heard as much from Sabrina's account, but she'd left out the bit about Puck's parentage - bombshell though it was, she'd probably thought it wasn't her news to share. For his part, Puck had sounded almost detached, had sounded almost exactly like Oberon in the few times Henry had been in his company - disdainful and uninterested. But perhaps it was simply the manner of Fae males and their overwhelming power that made taking a life such a non-issue.

But even as the thought had occurred to him, Henry knew it was as far from the truth as anything else he might've conjured from his shallow stereotypes and ungrounded prejudices. No, the careless indifference was simply the way Puck knew to handle yet another loss in his life; heaven alone could fathom how the boy had had more than his fair share.

"I'm sorry, Puck," he said, and meant it.

Puck shrugged. "Yeah, me too. Luckily, Mustardseed was okay with me still being King. I offered the throne back to him, since _he's_ Oberon's true heir, but he didn't want it. I think he just didn't want the work that came with all that fame and glory."

He snorted in mock derision, but his smile didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Does Sabrina know?" Henry wasn't sure what made him ask it; he certainly didn't think the boy would've confided in her father before her.

"First person I told." Puck nodded, then suddenly grinned. "And she swore appropriately. I especially appreciated that she didn't give me that patronizing crap about how it was all going to be a-okay."

Henry's eyebrow lifted, but he said nothing more. It was hard enough, he suspected, for Puck to have disclosed this much already; if he were honest, he was actually a little relieved that the boy hadn't sunk to taking digs at him.

Yet.

"Speaking of whom," Puck continued airily, "I'm still planning on marrying your daughter, in case you're wondering."

Henry sighed. He knew it had been too much to hope for. "I figured as much."

Puck had been waiting for Henry to punch him, or snarl out a list of conditions on Sabrina's honor and virtue and threaten his person should he step even a millimeter out of line. But the older man merely watched him for a moment, before saying, "I was wrong about you."

"Which part - that I'd still stuck around in spite of Sabrina's bellyaching?"

"No - about breaking her. I realize now that you couldn't. Or wouldn't. Whichever. I misjudged you."

Puck blinked in surprise and, in his pleasure, let his defenses fall for just a moment in a bright, unguarded smile.

Which quickly became a cunning smirk.

"So . . . does this mean you're okay with her moving into Faerie with me tomorrow?"

"Absolutely not!" Henry's face turned puce. "She's _seventeen_!"

Puck guffawed. "And just months away from being able to do just what she wants without having to clear it with you old farts," he pointed out. "But I was just pulling your leg, old man. Geez, you're so uptight!"

Henry sputtered something incoherent as he fought the urge to throttle the smug fairy boy.

"That said," Puck went on, blasé, "Sabrina and I are going to pop by my homeland sometime. A purely diplomatic visit; I thought that, being the future Queen of Faerie, she should know about about the history of its King."

"Excuse me? Did you say your _homeland_ \- the one populated entirely by _dragons_?"

"Don't worry, it's perfectly safe, as I'll be there the whole time."

"That's exactly why I'm . . . and what do you mean - future Queen of Faerie?"

Puck threw Henry a condescending look.

"Um. When a King marries, his wife usually becomes Queen. Unless she's evil and tries to steal his throne, in which case he cuts off her head and she becomes a corpse instead."

"No! I mean - you're making plans _already_?"

"Why not? Fate's already got a head start on us."

Henry paled. He opened his mouth to speak but found no words.

"But maybe I'll let her be done with her absurd school first," Puck tossed out evenly. "I can wait a few years. After all, we have all the time in the world, right?"

Henry's head spun. The boy couldn't possibly be serious, could he?

Then again, this _was_ the Trickster King.

Puck watched him, reading Henry's shock, and his own expression eased.

"I'm not taking her away from you, Hank. And I'd never make her do something she doesn't want." He rolled his eyes. "As if I could; ask me how I know. She's a hard nut to crack; even you said so. Which reminds me: you were wrong about one other thing. It wasn't that I _wouldn't_ break Sabrina - she's just not that easy to break, period. She's tougher than you think."

He turned again toward the kitchen door.

"But only because of you," Henry replied, feeling a strange sadness to say it.

 _This is the moment you let go._

Once more, Puck stopped, feeling rather than hearing, the tenderness in the older man's voice. He looked back, unable to believe that it could be meant for him.

"I'll take good care of her," he promised, his voice uncharacteristically grave. "I give you my word."

"Give Dad your word for what?" Sabrina interrupted, appearing from around the doorway. "What are you up to now, Stinkface?"

Puck's eyes lit up in evil glee as he rebounded effortlessly. "We were just discussing your dowry, woman. I asked for 50 cows along with the contents of the fridge, including tonight's leftovers. Your dad said I could have half a pound of ground beef, and he was keeping the leftovers, but he'd throw in the bag of stale Cheetos from the pantry. I thought that was a pretty fair deal, actually, and we were just about to shake on it when you showed up. Betcha didn't know you were worth this much, huh?"

Henry's eyebrows shot up - as often as he'd seen this side of Puck, he was still not used to how swiftly he could flit between one manic mood and another.

But Sabrina was and, completely unfazed, she stared the boy down. " _Only_ 50 cows? I coulda sworn I was worth way more than that - or at least my _silence_ was. You know. . . I seem to remember a certain incident in the forest involving pants, or, more precisely, the _lack_ thereof. Maybe my dad would be interested in what _really_ happened . . .?"

Puck paled.

"Uh. . . . guess what? I think I messed up on the going rate for humans. . . it _might_ have been quite a few more heads of cattle than 50," he hastily amended. "And I'm pretty sure there was talk of a palace, and servants, and silks and . . . did I say 'dowry'? Oops, my bad. I meant 'bride price', of course - worth your weight in gold and diamonds. After all, my love, you are priceless beyond the galaxies, and matchless in beauty among women . . . ugh."

He turned his face and gagged on his own words, before muttering, "Kill me now."

Henry had just felt his own stomach turn over when Sabrina caught his eye in a wink, and he realized with surprise that his daughter could more than handle the irrepressible trickster. He watched her grin smugly at Puck, watched him narrow his eyes back at her, watched their expressions change as they looked at each other, until Puck's gaze became intense and earnest, as if he were saying something with just the softening of his face, and Sabrina responded with the merest blush before blinking away.

No words, but somehow, at last - by some miracle - they'd found the translation.

And from the looks of it, they'd be speaking it - that strange thing called _connection_ \- for many years to come. Henry was surprised at how much he didn't mind that thought. . . or the fact that this boy was in his daughter's life. A sudden memory hit him just then - of all those nights when she was little and he'd stood beside her bed and secretly prayed about the man she'd someday love. _Make him stronger than he himself ever was_ , his supplication carried through the darkness of her room, _make him want to give her everything, want to always keep her safe, love her a thousand times deeper than he ever could._

 _Never in a hundred years - or four centuries - did I imagine he'd be you_ , he mused as he watched Puck leave the room after Sabrina and take some of its color with him. _Even if you_ are _spot-on._

He was still lost in thought when, from upstairs, Sabrina's laughing protestations floated down to him: "Puck! Put me down! Get your hands off me, you filthy scumbag!"

With the sound, the years fell away and dumped him unceremoniously back in the present. He suppressed a growl - in a decade or so, that boy might be heaven's answer to his prayer but right then, she was only seventeen and still under his roof and and, _by Jove_ , that young upstart was going to learn his place. Besides, it irritated him to no end that in spite all their hints and denial, he was still no closer to knowing what had really happened under the tree in that forest. The size of his daughter's eyes when he stumbled upon them! The look on that boy's face! And those damned _pants_ \- the ones that should've been on that boy's body but _weren't_! Now, months later, Henry's skin _still_ crawled at the memory.

He let loose the growl and marched up the stairs.

* * *

 **A/N: Couple more chapters to go and then we're wrapping up. Thank you for all the reviews and favorites and follows! I'm always pleasantly surprised to meet new readers and followers from other fandoms - welcome!**

 **I'll respond to a couple of guest reviews here:**

 **Liz: I'm so glad! Hope this chapter gave you happy feelings, too.**

 **Guest (1/5/2017): You're welcome!**


	21. Chapter Twenty

**CHAPTER TWENTY**

The pilgrimage, as Basil dubbed it in a tone of exaggerated reverence, was arranged for the following weekend. It started out perfectly normal: the doorbell rang in the late afternoon and Sabrina opened the door to Puck, dressed in jeans and a hoodie - a typical teenage boy arriving to pick up his date.

After that, however, _bizarre_ took over.

Puck held out a weird screen thing to Sabrina. "Check this out - Mordred made this for me."

"What is it?" Basil asked, coming up behind Sabrina, his eyes like saucers (he could never resist a gadget, but a Mordred LeFay-made gadget just about blew everything else out of the water).

"Screensaver!" Puck gloated.

"That's _not_ a screensaver," Basil said, disappointed. "Do you even know what a screensaver is, Puck?"

Puck grinned confidently at him and the rest of the family who'd come to witness the commotion. "Course! That's the lame photo you have on your computer, like the ribbons that change color while you watch and your brain dies. This isn't that kind of screensaver, duh. This is a _screen_! It shields you from mortal eyes so you can do magic things!"

"Oh!" Basil exclaimed, safely restored to happiness."And _saves_ you from having to use forgetful dust! I get it!"

"Bingo!"

"Why'd you need it? Are you gonna wrangle magic?"

"Kinda. I'm gonna turn into a dragon on your roof. Wanna watch?"

Basil's eyes swallowed his face. "Yeah!"

"This I gotta see," Henry said, while Veronica muttered doubtfully, "is it decent?"

"Pfft, yeah." Puck waved dismissively. "I finally figured out how to change and keep my clothes on - no doubt a huge letdown for the neighbors, though. And even if I didn't, it's really only an issue when I shift back. Let's go already! Oh, hey, Grimm, you're gonna lose those shades up in the air."

Sabrina pulled her sunglasses off her face. "Okay, I won't wear them," she said, "and I'll . . . keep my eyes shut the whole time or something."

Puck tsk-tasked. "And miss the scenery? Humans! You lot don't know the first thing about improvising. Look, you got. . . I dunno, swimming goggles or something?"

"Hey! I've never had to fly long-haul on a dragon before! Why don't -" Sabrina began, but Daphne, seeing yet another fight about to blow up, grabbed her arm and pulled her deeper into their apartment. "I'll help Sabrina find something. Come on, Sis."

Once they were alone, Daphne turned to her sister with a knowing look. "So you're seeing the in-laws, and you're nervous. Understandable - there's a lot riding on this. Because you know what they say: you can tell it's serious when he takes you home to meet his Mom."

"We've _all_ met his Mom," Sabrina snorted. "Even you. And we all almost died. Oh, just go ahead and say it, Daph. You know you want to."

"Say what? You mean 'I told you so?'" Daphne's face was all innocence. "Oh, no. _Why_ would I say 'I told you so'? I would _never_ say 'I told you so'. Saying 'I told you so' would be _mean_."

Sabrina elbowed her, and Daphne shoved her back, laughing.

After much digging in closets, they found a scuba mask, and then the family marched up the access stairway to the roof. Puck fiddled with a dial on his gadget and the air shimmered around them.

"Screen in place," he announced. "It'll move with us until we're clear of prying eyes. Okay - ready?"

Without waiting for a response, he rolled his shoulders and became a dragon.

"He wasn't kidding," Henry said in grudging awe as the family craned their necks to peer up at him. Basil and Daphne were speechless, staring with open mouths.

At last Veronica recovered enough to help Sabrina climb atop Puck's back. She secured the straps of her backpack around her waist and positioned the scuba mask on her face.

"I look like an idiot," she remarked grumpily.

Puck swung his head around to stare at her and cackled, the sound emerging as a hideous choking rumble. "That's because you _are_ one. It's what I've been saying all along."

He didn't even flinch when Sabrina, looking mutinous, drove her heels into his sides.

Henry narrowed his eyes at them. "Should I be worried that you two are going off alone into dragon territory?"

Puck's scaly lips turned up in a wicked grin, which looked ten times worse with his sharp dragon teeth. "You should be worried that we two are going off alone, _period_."

Sabrina huffed as Henry's face turned slightly purple.

"We'll be fine, Dad. Anyway, you know the coordinates of Dragon Land -"

"That's _not_ its name!" Puck barked, deeply offended.

" - so you can set the Seeing Eye to find us if we're not back in, say, a week," Sabrina pointedly ignored him. "And if the weather holds, we might swing by Granny's on our way home. Puck wants to show off his new dragon trick to Granny and Mr. Canis. We'll call when we get there. See you all Sunday- or Monday!"

"Bring me home a dragon souvenir!" Daphne yelled, waving.

"Take pictures!" Veronica added, stepping back and pulling her remaining children with her.

Then, with a mighty whir of wings and wind and flying hair, they took off into the sky, rising out of sight above the clouds and through a rippling forcefield that zapped them from Sabrina's world into Puck's. Even with his warning, she'd hardly had enough time to brace herself for the transition before it hit her. For a few uncomfortable seconds, all her hair stood painfully on end and her insides felt like they'd been stapled together, and then they shot out with a sudden release.

"Sorry," Puck called back, the wind stealing most of his words. ". . . forgot. . . you. . . through . . . tr. . . safe now."

"Whatever," Sabrina thought, coaxing her stomach not to divest itself of her lunch.

They flew all the rest of that day without incident. Sabrina, sitting on Puck's back without a harness or any kind of restraining device, was in a state of constant tension for the first hour, even though it wasn't the first time they'd flown together in his dragon form. But as time went on and she didn't slip off, she began to relax and let the rhythmic whump whump whump of his wings beating the air lull her into a drowsy stupor. Twilight came with a wash of grey and pink across the sky and then night fell like a velvet curtain around them. Still they flew, between the luminous clouds and stars so brilliant and unreal that Sabrina had to clutch at the plates on Puck's back to keep vertigo at bay. It was just as well that their travel arrangement discouraged talking; Sabrina was struck speechless by the grandeur of it all.

Long past dinner time, they finally stopped in a valley, not that Sabrina could tell what it was in the pitch darkness. Puck suddenly dived, while Sabrina flattened herself against his back, squeezed her eyes shut and rode out the bone-crunching descent in numb terror. They hit the ground more gently than she'd expected and she rolled off Puck's back in utter relief, just before her legs gave way beneath her. In the pale moonlight, Sabrina saw that they were in a sheltered lowland between craggy hills, and there was soft grass underfoot and the noise of water nearby. Puck morphed back into a boy, grabbed Sabrina's hand and pulled her to a small waterfall emptying into a pool near the foot of one of the cliffs. He dunked his head and drank deeply before shaking water out of his hair and all over Sabrina. She gasped, but joined him beside the pool, scooping palmfuls of the sweet, cold water to quench her own thirst.

They ate quickly out of her backpack and then, without even waiting for Sabrina to unpack a groundsheet, Puck stretched out on the grass and fell fast asleep, completely exhausted. She laid out the bedding, tried unsuccessfully to roll Puck onto it, and eventually gave up and threw the camping blanket over him instead. He didn't even stir.

With far more grace than Puck had displayed, she lay down beside him, feeling her muscles ache from the flight, although her mind was still alert as she stared up at the constellations. It was still early enough in the fall to be comfortable sleeping in the open, and she snuggled deeper into her sleeping bag, sighing contentedly. Beside her, Puck had begun to snore gently.

"Camping after all, _and_ carried off by a dragon, no less. Back where we started." She laughed quietly to herself, then grinned even more widely when she realized that there was probably no one for miles around to hear her. She turned to look at Puck's face, his expression soft and relaxed in sleep, and for a moment simply gazed, appreciating the freedom to linger without the fear that he might catch her staring, and make her pay for it. They'd fallen back into their old patterns of bicker-and-banter in the days following his return, although she'd noticed a kindness that had been absent before, a sort of unspoken pax. The first phone call after she'd left Faerie, for instance, had gone on for a good twenty minutes without a single insult, but she hadn't realized what it was that'd felt so _off_ , until Puck had stiffly murmured, "I er. . . look, I'm trying to be nice to you, but I'm just about dying here, so for the love of all things disgusting, can I _please_ say something offensive right now?"

She'd thrown her head back in a guffaw, feeling the world click back into place, and they'd fired off a volley of inappropriate monikers until they were both holding their sides with laughter. And when they had finally recovered, it'd been on the tip of her tongue to tell him she was falling in love with him all over again, but she'd been terrified of ruining the moment and hadn't quite managed to get the words out.

She'd wished she had, though, because while they were slowly but surely discovering how much they liked being together now, it still felt as if they were tiptoeing around the idea of what they were _becoming_ , of the future that was shoved in their faces at eleven and had been calling alluringly to them in the six years since. Turbulent were the waters they treaded these incipient days, dizzying eddies in which each smile was a bait, each touch a brand, and every kiss an ill-defined invitation to want more, to blur a boundary, to never _stop_.

So she'd reverted to surreptitious glances and the heady tension that used to drive them both to madness. When they were together, they surrendered desperately to it; when they were apart, she still tried for a semblance of sobriety - if nothing else, so she might feel she hadn't lost her mind completely.

But when he wasn't _looking_ , well, then it was fair game, and one she played as often as she could. Like now: lying inches apart and watching the moonlight paint his face silver, hearing the soft puffs of breath between his lips.

So achingly beautiful. And so gloriously _harmless_.

She wiggled an arm out of the warm layers of her bedding and sifted his hair through her fingers. _Just yesterday_ , she remembered, smiling, _this had mud in it, and worms, too. And now . . ._

"Puck the Magic Dragon lived by the sea," she sang in her head the song from her childhood. "That makes me Jackie Paper, I guess. Except that you didn't get left behind, did you? You grew up with me. Happy ending for us - and here we are now, alone in some deserted valley in the middle of nowhere, spending quality time together. Well. . . " she yawned, feeling sleep finally reach for her, "once we're no longer unconscious, I guess."

She allowed her eyes to finish their slow journey down to his feet, peeking out from the end of the blanket, and blinked at the thoughts that had suddenly come, unbidden, and caused her heart to race and her cheeks to flame.

"You'll be the death of me, Stinker," she murmured as she turned her back on him and assiduously repented of every single one.

* * *

Early the next morning when the sun was stealing over the horizon,, Puck woke refreshed. He stretched, turning to see Sabrina in her sleeping bag beside him, and poked her awake.

"Rise and shine! I'd kiss you good morning except (a) I'm not that kind of boyfriend and (b) you're gonna give me crap for not brushing my teeth first, so just get up already and let's get going. I need food. Where's the backpack?"

Sabrina sat up in her sleeping bag and watched Puck stand and loosen his muscles with a shake of his limbs.

"How are you not aching all over?" She grumbled, feeling her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth. "I feel like I've been hit by a truck."

"I'd answer that but you'll accuse me of boasting, so let's just skip it. Gimme food! I'm starving. Shifting and flying make me even hungrier than puberty." Spying the backpack under the blanket, he made a dart for it and plundered its depths.

They ate, then drank more from the pool. Sabrina stared around her in wonder - the dark, featureless valley from the night before had been transformed by the daylight into a beautiful vale of green grass, shady trees and flowers. Puck noticed, and nodded at the scenic view.

"Nice pitstop, huh? Restrooms are yonder -" he thumbed a copse of bushes off to the side, then pointed in various other directions. "Or _there_ yonder. Or there. Or there. Or anywhere, really. Take your pick. I'm off to take advantage of the facilities. Meet you back here."

Sabrina grimaced. She remembered now why she hated camping.

But they were soon on their way once more. They flew over baking dessert and wild country, and also pasturelands dotted with animals. Then small coastal towns and strange hinterlands of twisted trees and barren waste. Sabrina wished she had a map or at least been able to ask Puck the names of the places they'd passed but the wind made conversation hard. Plus she wasn't exactly near his ears. Uh, _where_ were his ears exactly?

Flying on the back of a dragon, Sabrina realized, was not as fabulous as she'd initially thought. Sure, it was exhilarating to feel the wind in her hair, but hours of crouching in the downwash of the wind stream left it snarled, even curtailed by the strap of her mask. And in spite of being covered from head to toe and slathered in sunscreen, her skin felt ravaged by the sun. By the time they'd humped over a range of mountains and begun their final descent into a valley land which Puck had pointed out to her was "home sweet home", she was more than ready to be done.

The springy turf underfoot, though it took her five minute before she could walk on it, was the most glorious thing she'd ever felt. She went down on her belly and kissed it, earning her a barrage of scornful invective from Puck about royalty and the honor of being borne aloft by His Esteemed Lordliness.

"Shut up," she scolded him. "I'll be lucky if I get any feeling back in my legs at all. I'm not moving from this spot until I'm good and ready."

And she would've stayed all through the night had it not been for the children that quickly descended upon the pair from out of nowhere. Still pounding the circulation back into her calves, Sabrina watched them climb all over Puck and chatter away in high voices, clearly excited to see him. He let himself sink to the ground under their weight before rising in a sudden movement and throwing them all off. Then, before they could latch on to him once more, he morphed into multiple creatures in rapid succession, and the children clapped and screamed in delight. For a moment, Sabrina forgot her aching limbs and watched, spellbound.

Then the children turned expectantly to Sabrina, blinking their solemn, beautiful eyes at her.

"What do they want?" She asked Puck, thinking they could only speak the guttural tongue in which she'd heard them converse with him earlier.

"What can you shift into?" The tallest child asked her.

"Oh! You can speak my language!" She exclaimed, surprised and relieved. "Well," she bent to look them in the eye, "once I became a dog named Toto. Another time, I turned into a goose."

The children looked impressed.

"We can only become dragons," another child told her sadly.

"Dragons are awesome," Sabrina assured them. "Way better than geese."

"Okay, git," Puck shooed them away. "Go bug someone else or play with knives or something."

Sabrina frowned at him as the children scattered. "Why'da do that? They were just being friendly!"

He snorted. "And they'll keep being friendly until it drives you nuts. You've gotta keep telling them to scram or they'll be in your face 24/7. Don't believe me? Watch. They'll be back in five minutes."

Puck was right. Before they'd walked a hundred paces, the children returned, dancing around the two teenagers once more. Puck's head morphed into a bat's and let loose a horrendous shriek that sent the little ones screaming and fleeing.

Sabrina's ears were still ringing when Puck morphed back into himself, looking very satisfied. "I had to try out half the animal kingdom before I found that one," he explained smugly. "There aren't many creatures dragons are afraid of, but that one works every time. Now let's go find Mother before they come back again."

They found Titania in the house that Puck said used to be Niall's.

"Wow," Sabrina remarked under her breath. "Talk about claiming the spoils of battle. Doesn't she find it weird, though, living there when she'd murdered him in cold blood?"

Puck shrugged. "I think she's doing it to punish herself. She says she can hear his ghost whispering to her at night."

"That's creepy!"

"That's not even the half of it. She also says she still loves him. After everything he did."

Sabrina recoiled, then paused as she was suddenly overcome with empathy. Titania had had so little say in how her life turned out and when she could finally be with the lover she should've had, she had to slay him in order to save her son. She filed the thought away for another time - it would not do for Titania to see the pity in her eyes; the Queen would have her head for her such condescension.

"Mother," Puck called, pushing the door open.

Titania rose from her chair in a room whose only character was its contrast to the opulent grandeur of Faerie's. Gone also were the stylish suits Titania favored when she was still its monarch; now she stood in cotton and leather and the steel accoutrements of a warrior. The only familiar thing was her face - still breathtakingly beautiful, and just as sad as when Sabrina had last seen her. Then, her mourning had been for Oberon, but if one didn't know better, one might be tempted to think her pinched, troubled expression was typical, as was her misfortune with lovers who met untimely deaths.

"Sabrina Grimm, welcome. Will you join us for the evening meal?"

Titania's greeting was gracious as she held out her hands, but all Sabrina could think of as the Queen's fingers closed around her own was how those hands had ripped out the heart of her soulmate.

 _Stop it,_ she told herself. _You were never afraid of Titania, so don't start now. She's just your boyfriend's mom, not a serial psychopath._

 _Uh, yeah_ , the logical side of her brain pointed out, _she kind of is. Great. Now I'm having conversations with myself._

Fortunately, Puck was already pulling a chair up to the table and declaring that he was hungry enough to eat an entire herd of wild horses, plus their saddles.

"I worked it out -" he said skittishly to Sabrina, " - you know that bet I made with Arthenus the World-Smasher back in the day? The one where he said I couldn't eat an entire horse and I said heck, yeah, I could? Well, I finally figured it out: the saddle didn't count because it was leather, and leather is cow, and cow is beef, and that's a different meat altogether."

Sabrina stared at him in amazement. _As long as I live_ , she thought, _I will never understand how his brain works. Or doesn't work._

Dinner was surprisingly civil, and it wasn't until they were halfway through the meal that Sabrina realized there were no servants, and that Titania must have cooked it herself. Her surprise deepened when the Queen rose and began collecting the dishes and walking them over to the sink.

"Uh . . . I'll help wash," she offered awkwardly as she left her seat. Then, noticing Puck rocking on the back legs of his chair and crossing his feet comfortably on the table, she added, "and Puck can dry."

Puck choked. "What? No way! I'm King! I don't do dishes!"

"Well, she's _Queen_ , and _she_ cooked dinner." Sabrina argued, pointing at his mother.

"That's because you're _females_. Duh! It's wha -" Puck's churlish rant was effectively cut off by a wet rag in the face.

"Get over here this instant, Your Lazybutt Majesty!" Sabrina ordered as she dunked her hands into the soapy water, adding under her breath, "troll".

"Harpy." Puck scowled bitterly as he joined her at the sink.

From Sabrina's other side, Titania watched them with an unfathomable expression.

Cleanup after a dinner for three took hardly any time, especially with everyone's (forced) help. Puck yawned as he finished the last dish and tossed the rag back in the sink.

"I'm beat," he announced, then grinned at Sabrina. "All that flying was one thing, but carrying a load like Grimm here all day can put a guy in the ground, let me tell you. _Someone_ needs to lay off the hotdogs, I think."

"More like _someone_ needs to pump more iron, wimp." Sabrina shot back. "Or do more dishes. You could barely lift those bowls and plates!"

Puck glared, but it was half-hearted and dissolved into another yawn. "It's too early for bed; think I'll get some fresh air, maybe find some entertainment. Wanna come terrorize the teenagers and kids?"

"I'm sure Sabrina's had enough of you for one evening," Titania cut in. "And I'd like to visit awhile with her."

Sabrina stifled a gulp.

But Puck was already outside the house, calling back some careless, unintelligible remark.

 _Steady_ , Sabrina reminded herself. _It's just talking. Words can't kill._

The Queen brought a coffee pot over to the table and poured out two steaming mugs.

"He's right, you know -" she began, "- the King does not wash dishes."

Sabrina calculated how fast could she dive for the knife in the drying rack - probably not as fast as Titania could gut her with her bare hands for disrespecting her idiot son. Stupid Fae monarchy.

But Titania had continued speaking. "I find it very interesting that you have such little regard for his station. Others would have pandered unquestioningly to his whims."

"I don't have the patience to pander," Sabrina replied incautiously, her eyes darting around the room for a means of escape. _The door is too far away, curse it._

"What's even more interesting is that he _obeyed_ you. _The King_ . . . obeying the order of a human girl. Why is that?"

Sabrina shrugged, sensing that, at least for the moment, she'd bought herself some time. "He was just asking for it; he's so full of himself."

"What an unusual way to win his favor," Titania remarked, and Sabrina's defense kicked in.

"I'm not trying to win his favor! Look, in your world, he's a hotshot. He gets to boss people around and they have to wait on him hand and foot. I get it. But where I come from, he's just like everybody else. When he was living with my grandmother, she let him get away with murder but if it'd been me, I'd have made him pull his weight around the place, King or no. And tonight, you'd just made us a nice meal. The least he could do was help clean up, especially in his mother's house. In my world, it's called being decent."

She paused, suddenly remembering whom she was speaking to. She swallowed and added, "Your Majesty."

"Ah," Titania responded, "but we're _not_ in your world now."

Sabrina said nothing. She was nervous, and that made her jumpy, made her shoot off her mouth; she wondered if having her foot in it now was about to cost her big time.

"It's refreshing, actually, that you speak to him this way, without the fawning and flattery the other girls prefer." Titania's response was unexpectedly agreeable. "They seem to believe that is the way to catch his eye, so they can rule Faerie alongside him. I have my doubts that it is working, however."

 _Other girls?_

"Because, for some unfathomable reason, it appears that he's picked _you_."

Sabrina's mouth gaped, but the Queen sighed, seemingly unaware. "I fear I might have been too indulgent with him. I think I favored him because he was Niall's. . . and also I felt guilty for what I'd done. Not that I had a _lover_ \- all the kings and queens of Faerie have had dalliances at one time or another - it is inescapable, after all, when you live this long married to the same person. No, my conscience was pricked only for the secret I kept from my sons - that they were not true brothers, that the younger should rule Faerie in the bloodline of his father instead of the elder. But I lived the lie because I loved Puck more than Mustardseed. I refused to admit it, of course - how could any mother have favorites among her children?"

Titania was silent for long enough that Sabrina realized she might have been expected to respond. Unfortunately, her own mind was stuck on the kings and queens of Faerie engaging in side affairs after being married for centuries to the same spouse.

"Um, I can't speak from personal experience since I . . . I've never been a mother, and . . . but. . . I don't think my mom does. . . has favorites among us, I mean. But we're all Dad's . . . uh. . . I mean we all have the same father. . . um. . ."

Titania didn't seem to notice her sputtering and kicking herself; she was looking through Sabrina as if lost in thought.

"Do you love him?" The Queen asked suddenly.

"Who - my Dad?"

Titania turned her intense gaze on Sabrina. "My _son_."

 _Wow_ , Sabrina thought, _she sure cuts to the chase, doesn't she?_

"Oh - um. I'm only seventeen," she hedged, "I think it's a bit soon to know for sure, and it's very complicated. He's the King and -"

"I heard what you did for my kingdom," Titania interrupted. "Mustardseed told me of the abandoned children, how you and the warlock created opportunities for them to attend schools in your world, for my people to have new jobs, the training strategies for the soldiers, and the ambassador program that Feylinn is so happy about. It was very good work, and I am grateful. Others before you had tried to do the same, you know, to win our favor, but they gave up when neither of my sons showed any interest in wooing them. I thought you were the same - a human girl weary of her commonness, harboring dreams to rule an Everafter kingdom. And yet, Mustardseed tells me that you continued working for Faerie even after you received the news that Puck had died in that battle. Tell me - why is that? You owed nothing to us, and you certainly had nothing to gain from a dead King."

Sabrina bristled at the implication behind the Queen's words.

"First of all, I'm a Grimm and I am _not_ common. And even if I weren't a Grimm, I'm human, and humans, even without magic, are pretty darn amazing. And second, all that stuff I did for Faerie? It needed to be done, period. Sure, part of it was for Puck, because it was what he's always wanted for Faerie, but also because I want to help Everafters. I think they're just like everyone else and deserve a chance in the world they've been put in without those more powerful than them setting roadblocks in their way. When I - and my sister - lost our parents, and had nowhere to go, my grandmother hunted us down and took us in. Sure, she's family, but she took Puck in, too, when he was exiled. It's what Grimms do - we help people who can't help themselves: mortals, Everafters, everyone. Like the orphans in Faerie, or the people who couldn't go to school. And just because Puck was out of the picture didn't mean the work would get done by itself. No offense, Your Majesty, but your kingdom needed a lot of work, and not only in flattening other kingdoms just to get stronger. I'm not a warrior like you or Puck but sometimes. . . maybe you don't need wars and fighting and conquering to build a kingdom."

She paused, adrenaline coursing through her veins as she defended herself to the Queen, and pondered how to say the next bit.

"I know what being with Puck means, Your Majesty; I know where it'll end up if we keep going. But I don't belong on a throne. Heck, I don't even belong in your world. So I can't tell you what we are now because it'll mean I'll have - I might have to be - "

She couldn't continue, not without sounding presumptuous, arrogant, ungrateful _and_ condescending all at once.

"Someone in your court," Sabrina caught her breath and began again, "- someone very wise - once told me she wanted to heal nations with just words. And she was right - words can do things that wars can't. So I'm going to keep helping the people of Faerie, and other Everafters, too, but _my_ way, from the outside, in _my_ world. I'm only seventeen now but someday, I'm going to Law School so I can fight for Everafters with my words, not swords or guns or magic or whatever. And if that means I don't have a choice about Puck because he has to have a queen or . . . or . . . I guess. . . "

She looked down, torn between what she truly wanted and what she believed in, and realizing to her horror that she'd talked herself into a corner. _Stupid!_

Titania watched her for a long time before taking her turn. "Traditions - never have I been as aware of them as when we began to coexist with your world. And Faerie's traditions are perhaps the most binding of all. But is it not true that traditions shape a people, make them who they are? We are nothing without them."

Sabrina blinked at this sudden change of tack.

"We have traditions too," she replied uncertainly, more out of obligation to defend the human race than to engage the Queen in what must surely be a doomed conversation. But Titania surprised her with her next words.

"But not as we have. Yours is still a young world, and you are willing to change - yes, even your traditions - while we are not. It makes you stronger because you allow yourselves to become what is needed to thrive. We hold on to our ways because they are all we've ever known, and that is our weakness. Do not be ashamed of being a young world. Or of being mortal. Your short lives make you passionate - you dare great things, attempt bold ventures, love fiercely. Immortals take their years for granted - next to you, we are bland and unevolving, eschewing risk and forfeiting the greater rewards they sometimes bring. But not Puck. He is like you. He lives as if he is a flame that might go out at any minute, and it makes him burn all the brighter, and fill entire worlds with his light."

Sabrina would not have described Puck's exhausting personality in such poetic terms but yes, she could see what his mother meant, shamelessly biased though she was.

"Your Majesty," Sabrina decided to take one of those risks for which the Queen had just praised her race, "what _are_ you saying?"

Titania did not break eye contact as she elaborated, "Do you realize that Puck is the first King in the long history of Faerie to be allowed a choice? Every ruler before him was wed to someone decided upon by their elders. Royal weddings were never about love; they were political transactions - either they were peace treaties, or victory celebrations after wars, or some formality to be fulfilled so that the crown could be passed from a dying king to his son. All of them decided by others, all of them chosen because of some benefit for the kingdom. Except you. _You_ are here, in the company of my son, Faerie's King, solely because he chose you. _He_ chose you. Not I, not Oberon; _he_."

"I have lived a long life and learned many things," she continued. "But the most valuable was that, no matter how it might look to the contrary, there is _always_ a choice. When I was betrothed to Oberon, my father knew about Niall, that we were intending to wed. Still, I was his only child, and he chose what was important for our kingdoms. To say I was livid was an understatement - after all, my life was being taken from me and I was to be sent far, far away from the one I loved. But I, too, made my choice - I chose not to let it break me, and I chose to see Niall again. Then, when I found out about Puck, I chose to keep him, and to bear Oberon's wrath when I could no longer hide it from him. And even then, I chose to keep it a secret from everyone else - the fact that he was _not_ Oberon's."

She took a breath and her eyes drifted, but not before Sabrina caught the pain that filled them suddenly.

"And when Niall threatened my son's life, I chose between them. If I hadn't, someone else would've chosen their fate, and we might not be sitting here now, exchanging pleasantries over coffee, while Puck frolics outside with the hatchlings and juveniles."

Sabrina pressed her lips together to suppress a cynical chuckle. _Pleasantries? Hardly._

"And I've chosen that my people will never retaliate on another land for revenge. On that, you and I are in agreement: sometimes, there _are_ indeed better ways to build a kingdom than war and death. So," Titania returned her gaze to Sabrina's, "there is always a choice, if you will take it. But sometimes, the fates are kind and the choice is _allowed_ us. You would be wise to recognize it as the gift it is, and not waste it."

The tension in the room was suffocating.

"And so I ask you again, Sabrina Grimm - do you love my son?"

Sabrina exhaled. Once more, her eyes drifted to the Queen's hands benignly cradling her coffee mug. She thought of the two dates she'd had with Puck, the countless fights over the years that had weaned them of their childhood, of her unmitigated frustration at his capriciousness, of her unease about her place in his world. Then she remembered his loyalty, his strength, the way his hands had felt on her face, the taste of his lips, and the shattering devastation when she thought she'd never see him again. She leveled her gaze at Titania.

"I don't want to be Queen of Faerie," she carefully returned, "but yes - I love him."

Titania sat back in her chair, as if by the force of Sabrina's admission.

"That," she remarked with finality, "is a very good answer."

* * *

 **A/N: This update took a while because I had to rewrite chunks of it that were hopelessly awkward. Also I had to google "airflow around dragon" because I had no idea how a person would take to flying on a dragon. Is it like riding in a convertible with the top down? Is it like riding a horse? Should Sabrina have had a helmet? Seatbelt? Once I thought about the safety practicalities, dragon flying lost all its romance.**

 **Next chapter is the last! I feel a bit sad. But also happy because I love last lines of stories and I get to deliver mine!**

 **Here are some responses to guest reviews - I will PM the rest of you guys back soon!**

 **dingbat: thank you so much! Yes, I live for the feels. And I try to write for the feels. I'm so glad you like this!**

 **Liz: I am SO glad you like Mordred, too!**


	22. Chapter Twenty-One

**CHAPTER TWENTY**

The sky was upside down.

 _By now, you'd imagine I'd be used to this, but . . . no_ , Sabrina thought wryly as, in mere nanonseconds, the ground disappeared below her - or was it above? Any moment now, she'd hear it: his grand announcement which, depending on their particular configuration, could blare out from anywhere about her person.

"Finally! What took you so long - don't tell me you two were discussing the fashion trends of the past five centuries?"

Ah - behind her left armpit; she must be tossed over his shoulder, then. _Much_ better than being held by the ankle, at least - she'd lost her entire lunch when that'd last happened, along with her favorite cardigan, rendered forever unwearable by said lunch.

"Puck, why are we up here?"

"I'm asking you out on a date!"

"Funny - I don't seem to recall the actual _asking_."

"Pfft. Formalities. You were lollygagging with Mother and I didn't want to waste even more time bargaining and arguing, so I just skipped ahead to the part where you said 'yes'. In my world, that's called 'taking the initiative'."

"In _my_ world, we call that 'kidnapping'."

The stars unexpectedly righted themselves above her as Puck swung her around, keeping his arm encircled about her waist.

"Hello." He smiled, wicked and lovely, his forehead just brushing hers, and for a moment, Sabrina teetered on the brink of a swoon.

She reined herself in with a glower, and drew a disappointed look from Puck.

"Always so negative. Look -" he dropped abruptly to skim the treetops, and Sabrina heard a loud crack - "I even got you flowers."

"This is an entire _tree limb_ , doofus, but thanks for the weapon." Sabrina raised it above her head and thwacked his with it.

"Ow, what was that for?"

"Seriously, Puck, what _are_ you doing?"

"I told you - it's a date. It's my turn, right? The last two times you gave me the grand tour of Manhattan, so now I get to show you around this dig."

"Well, next time _ask_ first. And try for some finesse, can't you? For instance, if - _if -_ I say yes, _don't_ barrel into me and yank me a hundred feet up into the air."

"Don't be ridiculous," Puck snorted, "we're up _way_ higher than that."

Sabrina sighed in exasperation.

"Sorry," he admitted after a second, "I'm new at this."

"So am I, but . . . fine, just . . . can't you land somewhere? Unless _this_ is the whole date - doing loop-de-loops all night?"

"Well, let's see . . . we've already covered the flowers and the dinner by candlelight and - "

"Hold on just a minute - we had dinner with _your mother_ , after which _she and I_ spent the next hour talking politics while _you_ hung out with your dragon frat boys. I don't think there's _any_ universe in which that counts as a date."

" - as I was saying," Puck continued coolly, "we were just getting to the part where we sit in darkness and stare at pictures. You know, like the movies. I believe that's what people in your world do. Okay, here we go - touchdown in three - two - one -!"

Sabrina exhaled in relief as her feet found solid ground again.

And drew in a sharp breath at the sight of the _actual_ ground, what looked like _miles_ below them.

"Welcome to the penthouse!" Puck boasted. "All nice and cozy, check it out: mountain, nesting cave, no one but dragons for miles, sheer drop to a very painful death below. Deja vu, huh?"

"Yet so much better _without_ the blood and gore." Sabrina gulped and stepped back from the lip of the hillside cave where he'd deposited her. Puck was right: it was all very familiar. _Too_ familiar, in fact.

"Hey! I think we did pretty well that night even _with_ the blood and gore."

"If you think almost dying is 'doing pretty well', then I guess . . . yeah."

"Come on! We're _always_ on the brink of death! Life would be so boring otherwise. Anyway, voila!" Puck swept his hand outward. "Drive-in movie - or fly-in, in our case."

Beyond the open mouth of the cave was the night sky, resplendent with constellations. Up that high and so close to it, vertigo overcame Sabrina and she slid down to a squat with her back against the wall and waited for her stomach to settle.

"That's - it's . . . gorgeous." When she could finally stare out at the glorious expanse of stars without feeling the world spin, she was well and truly awestruck.

"Yeah," Puck declared. "I don't mind the occasional payback Western but nothing beats Mother Nature."

Sabrina wholeheartedly agreed, and they watched the view in awe. Even Puck, who'd flown among the stars and was no stranger to their glory, gazed in uncommon reverence, leaning back on his hands, his legs stretched out before him.

"Speaking of mothers and the brink of death, _your_ mom can be real scary." Sabrina said, her eyes still on the sky.

"Oh yeah? You think _she's_ scary? You should've see my. . . you should've seen Niall."

At Puck's slip, Sabrina cast him a quick glance. He didn't look upset, but she took his hand anyway.

"From what you told me, I didn't miss much," she said gently.

He laced his fingers through hers and squeezed.

"So, what did Mother want?" He easily deflected.

"Oh, you know, to talk about what happened and what the future has in store. Classic lame adult topics of conversation."

"Ugh, I got an earful from Henry, too: thanks for not getting Sabrina killed, Sabrina's too young, be nice to Sabrina, blah blah blah. At least with _my_ mother, you only had to sit through the Old Queen-New Queen talk. Give me politics over feelings any day."

Sabrina smiled. "Actually, she was more interested in talking about _you_."

Puck raised an eyebrow. " _Me_?"

"Yeah. And _us_. I told her I didn't want to be Queen."

Puck's face fell. "You did?"

"Mm-hm. Not my thing. Besides, why'dya need another sidekick? You've already got Mustardseed."

"Yeah, but -"

"However, I did say I was gonna stick around anyway and make sure you don't do anything stupid. Too much power can get to your head, enormous as it already is. Incidentally, do you know how incredibly awkward it is to tell your boyfriend's mother you love him?

Puck visibly relaxed, his features creasing once more into his trademark smirk. "Oh good. I was afraid she might be hatching some new matchmaking thing with one of those palace maidens."

Sabrina withdrew her hand and arched her brow. "You never told me about the palace maidens."

"Because there're none," Puck hastily clarified.

"Good to know."

"Although don't think I didn't notice you being territorial there, Grimm."

"But I thought you just said there _wasn't_ anyone to be territorial about?" Her tone was all innocence.

"Right, right. No need." His affirming tone then turned sly. "So, you told her you _love_ me, huh?"

"Well, she sure wasn't interested in synonyms. _And_ she had to practically force it out of me."

"I bet she enjoyed that."

Sabrina huffed. "She was very good at it, yeah. She must've had a lot of practice, with all those palace maidens."

Puck cackled. "On the contrary, my dear Watson. They were all were practically shouting their love for me from the rooftops."

His eyes widened suddenly as he realized his mistake. "N-Not that any of them actually _exist_ , I mean."

Sabrina hid her grin. "Nice save, hotshot."

She turned away from the stars to stare curiously around the cave. It was literally a hole in the hillside, as if some giant had gouged it out with an oversize melon baller, then punched his fist in the crater to turn it into a worm tunnel - not entirely implausible, given that this _was_ the Everafter Realm. She'd just opened her mouth to ask Puck about this when her attention was drawn toward the far shadows in the cave.

"Hey! Is that . . . my _backpack_?"

"With the sleeping bags magically squashed into it, yep." Puck sounded gleeful for a moment before deflating. "But not the food, because I ate it all on the journey."

"We're sleeping _up here_?"

"I told Mother we were big fans of camping outdoors; I didn't think you'd care for the guest room in her house. I mean, Niall's house." He rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

Sabrina's nose wrinkled. "Ew . . . no. You're right; _waaaaay_ crowded, and _waaaaaaay_ awkward."

Puck nodded his agreement, then leaned close to breathe in her ear, "Especially with his creepy ghost whispering sweet nothings when you least expect it."

Sabrina shuddered. "Don't. That's. . . ugh."

"What? Don't tell me you're _scared_ of ghosts? Ghosts are _hilarious_! All mopey and tragically dissatisfied with their lot and -"

"No, they're not. You weren't there when I had your . . . I mean, when Oberon's spirit was talking through me in that seance. Ghosts are . . . they're . . ." Sabrina floundered for an apt description.

"Spooky?" Puck supplied helpfully, stifling a laugh.

"Spooky doesn't even _begin_ to describe it."

"I'll bet. I couldn't even _stand_ talking to Oberon when he was alive; I doubt the afterlife improved him much."

A particular memory of her encounter with the old King's disembodied spirit resurfaced without warning and sent another shudder through her. Sabrina pondered whether to share it with Puck; there was so much water under that particular bridge that perhaps dredging it up now would do more harm than good, and yet . . .

She decided to go for it.

"You know," she said cautiously, "I didn't only channel his voice. It was the strangest thing, but I could also feel his feelings while he was . . . while I was . . ."

"Demon-possessed?"

"A _conduit_." Sabrina corrected, frowning. "Stop joking, Puck."

"I wasn't."

Sabrina's frown deepened; maybe this was a mistake after all. She nudged his shoulder with hers.

"Listen - when he used my hand to touch your cocoon, I distinctly felt regret. _His_ regret."

"Regret? For what? Dying before he got to see me emerge so he could tell me personally that I was good for nothing? _Again_?"

"Not that kind of regret! And don't ask me how I knew; I just did, because they were _his_ feelings, and they were pretty clear what they meant because I was feeling exactly what _he_ was feeling, okay? He regretted what he did to you. He regretted who he _was_ to you."

Puck stared at her, unblinking. Then he huffed cynically.

"Cut it out, Stinker," Sabrina chided him. "Dead men don't lie."

"That's _not_ what that saying means, and you know it."

"He hurt you all your life and you don't trust him to do anything else." Sabrina's voice was firm but gentle as she challenged him. "I get it. But believe me - in that moment, he didn't want to hurt you. And I'm not telling you this to make you forgive him or anything like that - unless you want to. . .?"

Puck leveled an incredulous glare at her but Sabrina didn't back down.

"I'm just telling you so you know . . . that he was _sorry_."

In the starlight, Puck's expression was hard. But as her words sank in, his throat bobbed once, and he blinked rapidly.

"I shouldn't care." His voice was hoarse when he finally responded. "He's not my father. Never was."

"But he _could've_ been," Sabrina pointed out. "And you didn't know that he wasn't, so you went on believing . . . whatever reasons you believed for why he was so awful. But it wasn't _you_ , okay? You need to know that. You need to _remember_ that. Nothing of what he said about you was true."

So much emotion now clouded Puck's face as he fought to undo the years of mind games that Sabrina had to sit on her hands to stop her arms from reaching for him. Eventually, she made herself look away; for all the battles they'd shared, these were his demons, and this was a war he'd have to win alone.. She distracted herself instead with her surroundings: beyond and below their cave, the hillside was spotted with bright windows and firelight flickering through open doorways, and from the ground, she heard the crackle of the fire pits. All around, the night was alive with the sights and sounds of a simple community at peace - what was left of a once glorious empire lost to war.

"What's it like, ruling a kingdom?" Giving in to curiosity, she spoke again when she thought he might be ready.

"Like. . . ruling a kingdom, _duh_. Why?"

Abashed, she smiled; she'd forgotten that he'd never known anything else. Also, she was glad to hear that his old snark was back.

"No. I mean being responsible for all those lives. You have so much power to do good. . . _and_ evil. You make a law and everyone has to obey it, whether or not they agree with it. And all those hundreds and thousands of _everyones_ \- depending on those very laws to be fed, to be happy, to be _safe_."

Puck chuckled low in his throat.

" 'S'not that different from keeping _you_ safe, Smelly. Actually, easier, since my kingdom doesn't exactly go chasing after dragons at the drop of a hat."

"Heavens, no - apparently, only their _kings_ get that privilege, right?"

Puck said nothing to Sabrina's taunt, and the ensuing silence bubbled with the careless laughter of children and the voices of their parents as they watched them dance around the fire pits. For a moment, they both stared downward, wrestling with memories in which Sabrina recognized the sadistic hiss of her own demons.

"I killed them," she said quietly, allowing herself the full horror of what she'd done. "So many of them."

"Well . . . that's war." Puck's voice was heavy with regret, even as he avoided looking at her.

"War sucks."

"Mm."

"It's never worth it. Not in any world."

"It is, if it means keeping you alive."

For once, Puck sounded not so much smug as sad, a stark contrast to his jubilant mood earlier. Near the fire pits, the dancing had turned into raucous roughhousing; where minutes ago there'd been only children, four or five very small dragons had now suddenly shot upward and were trying to knock each other out of the sky. Sabrina watched them, mesmerized.

"I always thought they were monsters," she murmured uncertainly, "but they're not."

Puck studied his hands for a long time. "Some are."

"No. They're like _us_ , Puck."

"So what does that make _us_?" He scoffed when Sabrina struggled to counter him. "Besides, it's genetic; I think I'm going to make a mess of Faerie."

"You're _not_." Sabrina was adamant now as she directed her words to him. "You said it yourself: you're not anything like Oberon; you're even less like him than you thought, remember?"

"I wasn't talking about Oberon."

He turned his face to hers, bitterness etched in every line and shadow. "But it doesn't matter which kingdom spawned me, does it? We're royalty. It's all we ever do - kill and conquer. Look at _me_ : I killed my own _father_. Over a _kingdom_."

 _Actually, your mother did_ , Sabrina thought, _and it was in self-defence, but I guess we're not counting technicalities here._

"So don't," she said instead. "Choose different. _Don't_ kill and conquer. _Don't_ follow traditions. _Don't_ go on all the same dates. And kick freaking genetics out the back door while you're at it. Be the first King of Faerie whose court _loves_ him, who dances with his people and makes peace with their enemies. You're _King_. You can do _anything_ you want. And I'll help. I _want_ to help."

Puck eyed her appraisingly before turning away. His face was still strained, but the lines were softening into a puzzled smile. Whatever had brought on his moroseness was fading now, although he was still radiating a restless energy as he continued to gaze, preoccupied, at the splendor around them. The diamond sky was very much like the sky from the night they'd sat in a different cave, coated in shame and carnage - was it only this past summer? It seemed like eons ago, in some other universe when time was old and still, when she and Puck were adversaries and didn't know the name for what truly burned between them.

 _But not tonight_ , Sabrina thought, her skin prickling as she felt him slide his fingers through hers once more. Tonight there were no battling dragons blotting out the stars. Tonight there was only Puck, and he wasn't a beast fighting for his life, a fairy dancing a delirium, or a king rebuilding a broken kingdom. Tonight, he was all _boy_ , just seventeen, on a date, holding her hand. She suddenly wanted to be done with this conversation, with its spiral of nowhere thoughts, but Puck sighed loudly, looking all ready to throw yet another pity party. _Well_ , she schemed, _I'll have to do something about that._

"You were wrong, by the way," She broke the silence, throwing him a sly grin.

Puck turned to her in indignation. "I'm _never_ wrong! Er. . . wrong about what?"

"When you said I couldn't distract a dragon on the ground."

"Oh?"

Without another word, she pressed closer, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him, slow and teasing.

 _Oh._

His eyes widened slightly at her forwardness, then fluttered shut, and he let himself fall into the abyss. When they drew apart with his gaze slightly unfocused, he didn't even call her out on her extremely cheesy come-hither line.

"I'd forgotten the females always have these sneaky tricks." He managed to stammer out instead.

"As long as it's just _this_ one female," she returned.

"Yes, ma'am." He angled his head and grazed her throat with his lips, his breath hot against her skin. He was rewarded with a sigh from Sabrina, who arched into him and lost herself in a heady cocktail of his scent, the warmth of his touch and the knowledge that they were the only two people for miles and miles around. Hands fingering the hem of his shirt, she toyed dangerously with the temptation to get blissfully carried away. After all, this was so much better for her well-being than fighting, and Puck was an excellent person to get carried away with.

And she could always plead a case of magical addiction overdose if they got a bit _too_ carried away - after all, Puck _was_ pure magic, wasn't he?

But no - she - they - were still so new at this. Small steps, she counseled herself; we have all the time in the world. So she took his face in her hands, smiling serenely at how easily she could tease out of him these new and vulnerable expressions which, till now, she'd never have believed he was even capable of. She threaded the fingers of one hand into his hair and traced his lips with the thumb of the other, before leaning up to kiss them once, twice, thrice. When she pulled away, he reached instinctively for her, almost trembling, then caught himself. He looked utterly dazed, and absolutely disarming.

He threw his head back, his voice a soft lament, "What is this magic? What have you _done_ to me?"

"What?" Sabrina asked, knowing full well what he meant, but wanting to _hear_ him say it.

"I love you," he admitted in abject misery, cradling his head, " _so_ much."

She laughed, strangely relieved. "Ditto. Makes you want to barf, doesn't it?"

"Don't even get me started. I used to mock the very _idea_ of guys even looking at you! Now look at me -" he rolled his eyes and shuddered, " _I'm_ one of them! Dangit -it was _so_ much easier to just fight with you all the time."

"But not as nice."

"The Trickster King is _not_. _Nice_!" Puck spat. "But. . . yeah." He slumped even lower and glowered at her.

"How the mighty have fallen." Sabrina gloated back, feeling something deep inside flutter at the sight of this flustered boy unwillingly surrendering to his better nature and proving her right once more that he was, for all his disdainful protestations, _good_. If this was what their future was like, she marveled, she could totally get why her older self hadn't had any complaints. Smiling, she pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Puck sighed noisily, then, just as easily as he'd shed scales for skin, sat up and dramatically shook off his the last of his ennui.

"Food - check; flowers - check; movie - check; makeout- check." He counted off his fingers in satisfaction, his lips turning up at the last item on his list. "I'd say this date is a total success."

Sabrina straightened as well, suddenly remembering their earlier conversation.

"So, how do you guys do dates?"

Puck's eyebrows knitted. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, tonight, _this_ : it's _your_ version of how we do dates in _my_ world. But what do you do in _your_ world?"

"I've never been on a date."

"Seriously?"

Puck made a rude sound. "Who would I go on a date with? Until I met you, I was a _kid_!"

"Oh, I dunno . . . Moth, maybe?"

" _Her_? She was just my _fiancee!_ " He gagged on the word. "I didn't even _like_ her! So why would we go on a _date_?"

Sabrina sighed. Things were so different in Puck's world, in the legalistic monarchy in which duty trumped all else. She decided on a different approach.

"Well, let's suppose for a second that you _weren't_ a fairy prince, that you were just a regular person living in Faerie, and you liked someone. What would you do then?"

Puck scrunched up his face as if thinking were torture. Sabrina waited patiently.

"If you sorta liked someone," he began doubtfully, "you might, like, sneak out with them or something."

"Sneak? Why sneak? Is it against the law?"

"I don't _know_ , okay? I've never done it myself! I just _imagine_ it's what other people would do who get to choose! I'm royalty, remember, dumbhead? _We_ don't get to like whoever we want. Our parents pick, and we clap our hands and say hooray." He paused. "Well, _some_ of us do, anyway. Some of us actually say something _else_ , and then we get kicked out of the house."

"Where they meet wonderful new friends to drive absolutely crazy, and they return to claim their throne after all," Sabrina finished without missing a beat.

"I guess," Puck said grumpily, as if it had never occurred to him that his story had actually had a happy ending. "Look, with royalty, it's always been betrothals or treaties and other big commitments and suddenly bam! You're married. Kingdom before self, right? But it's also Faerie tradition: if two people want to be, y'know, _eternally bonded_ ," he widened his eyes as if it were a particularly ghastly notion, "they do something really huge and important and life-changing together, so everyone knows. None of this wimpy flowers and movies stuff."

"Huge, like . . .?"

"Like . . . like . . . I dunno . . . like, build a. . . a. . . farm together, or move to another land together to set up home, or lead a war to defend a city together, or . . . or . . . uh. . . "

"Or plot to rule the world together and make everybody their slaves?"

Puck winced.

"Why d'ya have to bring Moth up again? And for the record, _I_ never agreed," he said in disgust. "So it would've never worked anyway. That, and she was _insane_."

Sabrina ignored him as she tried to work out the Faerie equivalent of romantic commitments. "Then there's your mother, and Niall. Didn't you say they were going to build a kingdom together, too?"

"They and everyone else in the cosmos," Puck supplied, sounding bored. "People are so unoriginal - it's always 'let's build an empire! Let's enslave the galaxy! Let's wipe out everyone in our way!' At least Mother had some good ideas - apparently, she and Niall were planning to turn their army into a force to be reckoned with, and to rebuild this place - their homeland. There was no talk of taking over Faerie or any other kingdom. At least not that Mother knew. But obviously Niall had other plans he didn't tell her about."

He cleared his throat. "Not that I care."

"And _that's_ why your Mom grilled me about being Queen!" Sabrina concluded, triumphant that she'd figured it all out. "She was trying to find out if _we_ were . . . um. . ."

"Parents. Always poking their noses where they're not wanted." Puck huffed. "And never where they actually _are_. But she needn't have bothered; anyone with half a brain could've worked it out."

At Sabrina's look of confusion, Puck barked out a laugh.

"Puberty, duh! I thought growing up was plenty incriminating," he explained with a hint of condescension, "but growing up _for you_ just about put the last nail in the coffin. Pun intended."

The implication of his answer hit Sabrina like a thunderbolt - what he'd been doing for her, _with_ her. Everyone had known she was the reason that Puck had surrendered his childhood, but until now, she hadn't known why.

"Oh," she started, her mouth frozen in a little o. "Are you . . . is this . . . are _we_. . . ?"

Puck put on his martyr expression. "Afraid so, sweetheart. You and me in for the long haul, just like tradition ordered. Because -" he indicated his body with a sweep of his hand, "there's no turning back from _this_."

Sabrina blinked, still stunned. "I thought you wanted to _buck_ tradition."

"Not all of it. Some tradition isn't _completely_ useless."

"Thanks . . . I guess." She murmured, blushing. "Better than two dictators enslaving the world, huh?"

He rolled his eyes in response. "Trends are for losers. Subtlety - now, that's the way to go."

Sabrina let minutes go by, unable to resume the conversation after so weighty an admission from Puck. It was conspicuously silent around the fire pits now, too: the children must have been ushered to bed.

"So, dates and sneaking off," she continued, simply for something to say, "if you could pick something to do, without copying what we do in my world, something _you'd_ like to do more than anything, what would it be?"

Puck's frown disappeared easily and Sabrina realized too late exactly what might have been on his mind. She opened her mouth to retract her words but Puck beat her to it.

"Fly," he answered, its simplicity catching her by surprise. "Just. . . fly. You and me. No one else. With nothing under us but freedom."

"Oh," Sabrina breathed, struck both by how easily she should've guessed it, and how much she still didn't know about him. "Okay. Well, then, let's do it - let's fly."

"Right now?"

"Yeah. Why not?"

Puck scrambled to his feet and held out his hand to her, bathed in moonlight and with a smile of joy that lit his eyes as if it were day. Sabrina walked into his arms and shivered at the warmth of his body pressed tightly against hers. She slid her own arms around him, marveling at how tall he'd grown in just these few years, how much stronger than when they were children, and relished the feeling of being _right_ together. She heard the sound of wings whipping the air, sensed the familiar moment when gravity relinquished its hold on her feet and her stomach, and let herself go.

Airborne, they moved in the starlight, the cool of the rushing air not quite able to counter the heat of their bodies, of the sensation of holding each other with no space between. The flight was not a languid drift across the moon - Puck soared and dipped and turned in dizzying corkscrews, reveling in the power he had over the encumbrances of earth. Twice he tossed Sabrina into the air as she gasped protests into the careless wind, and caught her against him as she plummeted. The second time, he shifted into his dragon form and passed expertly under her so that she landed on his back just as he clapped his wings together to fold her safely between them.

Then he rolled, and Sabrina's relief at his chivalrous rescue evaporated as she found herself once more free-falling into the glittering night.

But just as suddenly, she was in his arms again, skin against skin, her heart pounding so loudly she could hear it in her ears. She couldn't tell which way was which, if they were rising or falling, or even whether her foot might've been in his face, until his mouth was suddenly on hers, hot as a brand and heavy with the sweet lingering taste of risk.

 _Oh - right way up, then. And perfectly aligned._

She kissed him back, gripping him fiercely against her while trying to manifest the common sense that she normally carried in good supply when her brain wasn't conducting fire in the middle of the sky. She tried to warn him that they were suicidal for flying with their faces together and nobody's eyes where they should be, that they could very well be heading for a very painful and permanent encounter with a cliff, that he . . . that she . . . that they . . .

She got as far as saying his name, and even that emerged as a breath, and she felt his lips smile triumphantly against hers.

Well, dang - this boy knew _exactly_ what dates were all about, in _any_ world - his _or_ hers.

"How's that for finesse?" He gloated lazily when her lips were again free and she'd _still_ failed to finish her sentence.

"Shut up! And please, before you kill us both, let's go -" Sabrina vaguely pointed - at what she hoped was the cave, the dirt near the fire pits, any bit of solid ground would be fine - before hastily pulling her arm back in and slinging it safely around Puck's neck again.

"Oh, but I'm just getting started," he murmured, kissing her again as she struggled not to come undone. "And there are _no_ curfews - _or_ chaperones - in Dragon Land."

Then, before she could deride him for sinking to her parody of a nickname, Sabrina saw the stars streak by as she was swallowed by delirium and the night.

* * *

When they were finally on the ground once more, she found herself standing in front of an enormous mound of earth with the forest just beyond. Behind them, the lights from the fire pits cast their bodies into eerie dancing shadows.

"What's this?" She asked, indicating the mound. "Is it some construction project going on?"

"This is him."

" _Him_? Oh . . ."

"Here, they don't send their dead into the river; they bury them instead."

"He's . . . big."

"Told you."

"No - I mean, it looks like they buried _a dragon_ , not a fairy."

"He never shifted back."

Sabrina frowned. "Not even when he died? The dragons that came for Faerie did. All of them, as they were falling - they turned back into fairies to save themselves."

Puck shrugged. "Well, there you have it: apparently he wasn't interested in saving himself."

"What was he like?" Sabrina asked timidly. "Apart from being angry and murderous, I mean?"

"Tall. Shiny. _Very_ shiny. Also extremely skilled. _Amazingly_ skilled, actually. And -"

Puck abruptly stumbled forward, knocked almost off his feet. Something rebounded from him and fell to the ground in an explosion of dust - something that panted and groaned and rose with a desperate snarl.

"Hey!" Sabrina yelled, as Puck instinctively whirled around and faced his attacker in a menacing crouch.

A boy of about ten trembled before them. Even in the insubstantial firelight, they could see that his face was twisted in fury. Then his eyes met Puck's and the anger turned to fear.

Puck's own expression changed as he stared the boy down. Outrage melted away to understanding as his gaze flicked to the group of shadowy figures lurking behind the slight figure. Sabrina heard chuckles being hastily silenced.

Puck lunged for the boy's arm and he hissed, just loudly enough for the boy to hear, "Fight me."

The boy's eyes filled his thin face. "No. I didn't know - I'm - I -"

"You have their full attention," Puck continued in a sibilant whisper. "You need to show them you can get up and fight. And don't hold back, because _I_ won't."

In the next second, the boy was careening backward, holding his jaw where Puck had landed his fist.

But even before Sabrina could shift her gaze back to Puck, the boy had returned, catching Puck around his middle, his hands impossibly fast as he alternately lashed out and deflected, turning this way and that to avoid Puck's blows. _He was giving as good as he got_ , Sabrina observed as she watched the two boys wrestle each other to the ground and back up again. Once or twice, her heart jumped as Puck took a particularly good hit in his face or belly, but she resisted the urge to leap in to break up the fight. She recognized this for the rite of passage it was - she'd done the same herself in the orphanages and at least a few of the more nightmarish foster homes - and much as she would've preferred that it didn't involve beating Puck's beautiful face black and blue, she hoped the younger boy would be the one who emerged victorious.

It was over in minutes, with the boy choking on a mouthful of dirt as Puck's knee in his back forced him into the ground.

"Threaten me," Puck hissed into his ear. "Say you'll be back. Yell it so they hear."

"This is not over!" The boy shouted obediently. "I'll live to fight you again!"

"Good." Puck stepped back and pulled the boy up.

He raised his voice to the bullies watching from the shadows, and Sabrina noticed that he was holding his side. "I wouldn't touch this one if I were you! He broke two of my ribs. In fact, I'd be surprised if he couldn't teach you wimps a thing or two about uppercuts."

The shadows dispersed, muttering in dissatisfaction.

The boy stood and regarded Puck, his mouth falling open in horror and dismay. Puck, however, waved him off.

"I'll heal, kid. Don't let them push you around, you hear?"

Sabrina stared at Puck with a whole new level of respect.

"I thought kids were pests to get rid of?" She murmured.

Puck grunted, gingerly straightening. "Not that one."

"Oh? What makes _him_ such a special snowflake?"

"He's an orphan. I've seen him around with his little brother, trying to look out for him. His parents were soldiers; killed in the war."

Sabrina's heart dropped. "By . . . you?"

"Don't know. Don't want to know. You'd think those bullies would figure he's one of the good guys, but they're stupid morons. I'd have whipped them myself but _he_ needs to be the one to do it. Maybe not tonight, but someday. When he's ready."

"Did you really not hold back?"

Puck grimaced as he fingered his wounded side, wheezing out a chuckle. "I might've held back a little. But he needed to know he could defend himself, if not for his own sake, then at least for that kid brother of his. You can do anything to protect the people that are important to you, but first you have to _believe_ you can. That's what makes you an awesome fighter. That's what helps you win."

Sabrina felt her insides turn to mush.

"Aw, you big softy." She shoved Puck's shoulder.

He snarled back, watching the boy limp away.

"Hey!"

The boy stopped at Puck's voice, and turned.

"Good fight, by the way. That's a decent right hook you got on you. I should know, because Grimm here serves me one all the time." He grinned at Sabrina. "Listen, kid, when you grow up, and if you're not fighting anyone else's war, come find me in Faerie, okay? I could use you in my army."

Even in the flickering shadows, the boy's smile was brilliant.

* * *

Ensconced between the layers of their open sleeping bags much later, Sabrina and Puck lay side-by-side on the hard floor of the cave. The brilliant sky, having been their playground for the last hour, had begun to lose some of its novelty, but it was still far too bright to easily fall asleep under, so they'd taken to talking some more. After careful prodding, they'd discovered that Puck's ribs were only badly bruised, not broken, but even with his miraculous recovery rate, it would still take a night of sleep to patch everything back to normal. Sabrina tucked her head against his shoulder, careful to avoid jarring his side.

"Wish we had popcorn," Puck muttered. "What's the point of a movie if there's nothing to eat?"

"The _movie_ , duh," Sabrina retorted. " _That's_ the point."

"Boooo-ring! Speaking of which, I never understood why you people watched movies on dates. You can't _do_ anything; you just sit there for hours in the dark. You're not even allowed to talk or make spooky noises or frighten anyone to death. Not that the rules made any difference to me."

"Of course not - _you_ think obeying rules is for wimps."

"You got that right."

They rested in comfortable silence.

"So, what's next?" Sabrina asked.

"We sleep, then we wake up, mess about a bit, and take off to The Old Lady's place. Wasn't that the plan?"

"No - I meant _after_. Like, I'm gonna keep going to school, and you? Are you staying in Faerie or here? Or shuttling between both?"

"Faerie, mostly; Mother's got it covered here, it looks like. But I'll come visit every now and then. I like it here. Before, Faerie was the only home I knew, but this place feels like home, too, in some ways. I mean, everyone's like _me_. And I can be free here. I don't have to be King of this place; just a boy."

Sabrina nodded. "That's how I feel about the mortal world. There, I'm just a student - no super powers, no expectations - other than to not flunk school, I guess. But with the Everafters, I'm a Grimm, I have to save the world, I have to be Queen of Faerie, I have to be invincible."

"No, you don't. That was just the one prophecy. You've paid your dues."

"But I have to keep proving myself, though - that I'm like my Mom, my Dad, that I'm good enough to be a Grimm, that I'm good enough to lead an army, that I'm good enough to build a kingdom, that I'm good enough . . . for you."

Well, _that_ came from out of nowhere. Sabrina, betrayed by her own lips, puzzled over what could possibly have made her blurt that out.

Puck, clearly, was just as taken aback. "For _me_?" He sounded scandalized. "Whassat got to do with anything?"

Well, she'd already started down this slippery road; she figured she might as well finish the slide.

"You're the _King of Faerie_ , hotshot. I'm a human girl. You do the Math."

There it was, finally out: the question that'd been niggling at the back of her mind since The Dysenteric Pegasus Incident, the Flatulent Cocoon Trauma, and every other excruciating allusion to their inexplicable matrimonial future. Each time, she'd shrugged it off in calculated distaste: he was an immature upstart, she was an easy target, that's what kids did to let off steam while growing up in a war. But then the war had ended, he'd given up the fart jokes, and she wasn't even around much to lobby insults at, let alone suggestive one-liners. And _still_ he'd stuck around, his metaphorical sword at the ready against anything that he'd deemed a threat to her, and to what fate had hinted was in the cards for them. She was a Grimm, and she'd taken the world by its horns, twisted it out of the path of certain disaster, faced her own death too many times to number and survived to punch her fist in the air in a triumphant I-Told-You-So. In the capricious eyes of destiny, she _knew_ her worth.

But this boy - kissed by starlight and with the blood of legend in his veins . . . she needed to hear what she was worth to _him,_ because surely his favor came with a price, and perhaps it was one she feared she could never afford, not for all the accomplishments and accolades in the world. While he was playing king of the universe, she'd laughed freely at him, thought him silly and beneath her, but now that he'd earned his title with the strength of his soul and the purity of his heart, she could barely stand beside him and not quake at what true power looked like.

Not that she'd ever admit it to him, of course. He'd never believe her, anyway.

Just like he was staring at her now with the most incredulous look in his eyes.

" _This_ human girl happens to be a total badass - _ow_." Puck tried to prop himself up on his elbow, hissed in pain and collapsed on his back once more. "Wait - are you fishing for compliments? That's not like you. The Grimm I know doesn't care what people think. She only cares that she's got her sister's back, that nobody pushes her around, that she does whatever the heck she wants simply because she _can_. So if you're asking why I'm sticking with you, here's my answer: because you're _scary_."

"Wow - thanks," Sabrina scowled. "You sure know your way with the ladies."

"And because you're cute when you're angry," Puck continued, grinning at her frustration, at the way her sagging shoulders conveyed _I should've known better._

"But _also_ because you feel like home," he added unexpectedly, his voice serious now. "Not _my_ home - you've seen _that_ : not exactly milk and cookies and drawings on the fridge. So maybe I'm the last person in the world to know what home feels like. But if I _could_ imagine it, all the good parts would feel like _you_. I think that's why I keep coming back after we fight, or you yell at me to get lost, or even when I finally became King years ago. We always want to come home, don't we? Even when we've been away too long and we wonder if we still _can_ come home. But you're a Grimm - you'll take me in, right? Just like the Old Lady did long ago. That's what Grimms do. Besides, I've decided that even if you wouldn't take me back, I'd keep bugging you to because so help me, I just can't stay away from you."

Sabrina's face fell slack as anything she might've wanted to say effectively fled her mind. She vaguely remembered declaring the same thing to Titania about her family, what they did, the kind of people they were.

Puck put his hand behind his ear. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Sabrina didn't recall any unusual noise - even the fire pits no longer crackled beneath them.

"The sound of my reputation crumbling."

Sabrina snorted. "Probably just an echo then; I'm pretty sure your reputation was destroyed years ago."

"Sorry- don't remember. I've blocked out all the traumatic events of my childhood," Puck informed her airily, then sobered. "So yeah, I think I'll stick around Faerie for a while, make sure things are going well, then maybe see the world."

"Again?"

"It's bigger than I thought, and, yeah, I've proudly wreaked havoc in every corner of it, but then when Jake and I were traveling, I saw so many things . . . I never . . . it was like a totally new place."

"Mm. I bet - seeing it through someone else's eyes."

"And _Grimm_ eyes especially. Your uncle is a total adrenaline junkie. And crazy, too."

"Sounds like a match made in heaven, then. So why d'ya stop?"

Puck shrugged, still gazing out at the sky, seemingly indifferent.

"Wrong Grimm."

Sabrina frowned. He'd said it so quietly that she wasn't sure of what she'd heard - or that he'd even spoken.

"Let's see the world." He blurted out suddenly. "You and me."

She was immediately seized by the need to quote school and bank accounts, underage minors and overprotective fathers, skepticism evoking all her natural practicalities to absurd effect. Then she caught his look - unguarded and intense - and reminded herself that they were immortal, that time was their playing field, and the rules could hardly be broken now if _they_ were the ones who must yet write them.

"Which one - yours or mine?" She took the leap, her heart in her throat, aware that she was on the brink of something huge.

He exhaled, and the glint returned to his eyes. "Do I sound like I care? Pick one. Or both. You look just as good fighting a dragon as threatening that hot dog vendor who forgot your change."

Sabrina laughed then, heady and reckless, and linked her arm with his under their layers of makeshift bedding. She thought about Mordred blasting through bureaucratic barriers, Feylinn and her ambassadors, and Titania's speech about bold ventures and daring things.

"You are here because he chose you," the Queen had said.

 _No_ , she realized, _I am here because_ I _chose_ him, _and we may be only seventeen - give or take a few centuries - but our worlds are already the better for it. Imagine what we could do in them with the rest of our lives._

She turned to Puck, and found him waiting for her answer, his eyes bright with hope. His invitation had been casual - careless, even; his tone, however, had been anything but, and she hadn't missed what he was asking, the significance behind it, the stakes, the gamble. As she studied his earnest face in the starlight, she thought she had never seen anything she loved more completely than this boy, or wanted more fervently than to spend the indefinite future learning everything she could about him and his world. After all, she thought, if she was home to him, it didn't matter where their adventure took them - they could never lose their way, anchored to who they were, drawn surely to who they were yet becoming.

"Okay," she promised, leaning in to taste his smile, "let's."

* * *

 **A/N: 8000 words! Shoulda been 2 chapters but I couldn't bring myself to make you guys wait even longer than you already have. So much had changed during my editing of the previous 20 chapters that by the time I came to this last one, I had to rewrite the whole thing. The. Whole. Thing.**

 **So, Fathers and sons and home - this is what I wanted this story to be about. Oberon and Niall and Henry and Puck and Mustardseed and Mordred. "Sixteen" was about motherhood, so I thought fatherhood needed its own story: good fathers and bad fathers and absent fathers and false fathers. Fathers who are kings and fathers who can't even fathom teenagers. Fathers who are sentimental and fathers who are hard. Fathers who try and fathers who forget. Fathers who turn sons against each other and who bring sons together. Fathers who protect and fathers who harm. Fathers forced to raise sons who are not theirs and fathers moved to take foundlings under their wings. Fathers who are angry and fathers who are kind. And sons who watch everything and covet and become brittle - or grow up into the men and mentors their own fathers had never been. Also the women who love them and help them find their strength, and who are home to them in ways a physical place can't be. (The dragons, while gloriously fun, were really just there for color.)**

 **Thank you for coming along with me for the ride. I hope it was a good one. I've loved reading every review and PM and am grateful and thrilled for every follow and favorite - thank you, all! If you're a guest and leave a review for this last chapter, I thank you in advance, because I won't be able to respond personally to you (there aren't any new chapters to squeeze an A/N into!)**

 **Responding to reviews to the previous chapter now:**

 **DelusionalApple: Thank you! It is finally finished. No idea how almost an entire month has gone by since the last update.**

 **Guest (1/29): Thank you for reviewing! Voila! Finally updated. Hope it was worth the wait!**

 **OakeX: I owe you SO many PMs it isn't even funny. I will get to those next!**

 **Susiequeen300: Last chapter! A slow finish. And more confessions, of all kinds. Thank you for being such a wonderful reviewer throughout this story!**

 **Theworlddoesn'tstop: I've missed PM-ing you! But life got nuts, so . . . well. But your reviews have made my day each time they pop into my inbox. Well, I'm done telling my story, now I'll live for yours.**

 **silverwombat: welcome home! the timing couldn't have been more perfect because here is the last chapter! will respond to your reviews (thank you! thank you!) later via PM. Excited!**


End file.
